4 Things You Should Know Before Hiring A PR Agency

When you think about public relations, the first thing that comes to mind is a publicist who will get your news in the news and tells your brand story to all stakeholders across all media. This differentiates your brand communication from regular advertising. When you’re planning to hire a PR agency in 2020, you must consider aligning with a company who can come alongside your brand as a strategic partner and help you meet your broad business goals. They must be co-thinkers for your brand and help create a communication and reputation management strategy which follows your vision of how you want the brand to be perceived among your consumers and industry audience. Your PR agency should function as an extension of your brand and create the right messaging for all external and internal communication. Hiring a PR agency in Mumbai, or for that matter in any city, requires a great deal of planning and research.   

Objectives and Budget

Before you hire a PR agency, you must have clear objectives as to why you want to engage the services of a professional agency for managing the image of your company and brand. Having a defined scope of work and requirements will enable you to shortlist the right PR agency. Once you’ve narrowed down on the expectations from the PR agency, you must work out and allocate a budget against the respective tasks. PR agencies largely work on the monthly retainer model against a specified task document. However, some agencies also work on a project basis and charge only for successfully executing the defined project. If your public relations requirements are regular, it makes sense to hire a PR agency on a monthly retainer basis, as this will motivate them to take complete ownership of the communication and craft a sustained PR strategy, as opposed to a one-off press release.    

Extensive Research

Once you’ve locked your expectations and budget for your public relations exercise, you must begin researching the different PR agencies in your city, both online and through word of mouth. It is important to check out how the agency is managing its own PR, by consistently being in the news through announcements of what they have achieved in this space for their clients. You should pay special attention to PR agencies who have experience in handling clients from your business category, as these agencies already know the communication dynamics of all stakeholders connected with your business. Hiring a PR agency in 2020 is indeed a challenging task and calls for suitably addressing all relevant touchpoints. Aim for hiring a PR agency that will come up with cutting-edge strategies to positively position your brand and company in media, and deploy the latest digital marketing communication tools and technologies for new age information dissemination among stakeholders who consume their information from digital media.    

Selection Criteria

While choosing to select the right PR agency for your brand in 2020, you must broadly keep a few things in mind. Firstly, check to see if the agency possesses the ability to conceptualize and execute a communications strategy fully aligned with your PR objectives. Secondly, you must clearly assess the level of demonstrated expertise in your business domain and the volume of PR work done for brands seeking to connect with an audience similar to yours. Thirdly, and most importantly, the retainer fee which the PR agency quotes for the shared scope of work should be in line with your budget allocation. Always keep a 10 to 15% buffer in your PR budget, as you would not want to miss out on a genuinely good and effective PR agency that can deliver compelling public relations solutions only because of a tight budget. Always remember that the image and perception value of your brand and company is always more than what you think. Before you sign up for the PR agency, you must satisfy yourself with answers to questions like “how will the agency get you the required PR coverage” and “what will be the parameters to measure the success of the coverage”. Asking the right questions and objectively evaluating their answers will enable you to zero down on the agency that can help you achieve your PR objectives. It also makes sense to connect with their existing clients and check with them if the agency has delivered relevant public relations solutions that have met their business goals and communication objectives. 

Going Ahead

Once you’ve signed on your PR agency, the next step is to conduct a kick-off meeting with the team that will handle your account and your internal team which will interact with them. Creating a monthly calendar outlining the rollout of relevant content pieces helps in keeping everyone aligned to the objectives of the PR exercise.