4 Good Reasons You Should Never Hire a PR Firm
Public relations firms get a bad rap, and most of the time they earn it. The pitch is always the same: hand us your reputation, and we will make the world see you the way you have always wanted to be seen. When the work starts, however, you soon discover that the firm you hired is not the firm that sold you. Here's what you should expect when you choose to outsource your PR.
1. They Sell a Generic Package
The kickoff meeting is where the trouble usually begins. A senior executive walks you through a strategy so generic it could belong to any company in any industry, because it was never built for yours in the first place. No one asks what makes your business different. Even worse, they ask you to come up with your own key messages, which is a bit like hiring a chef and being handed the knife. And once the polished people have done the selling, your account quickly slides down to junior staff you will never meet.
2. They Ignore the Expertise You're Paying For
You know your business better than any outside firm ever will. A good partner would mine that knowledge. Most firms ignore it. They draft and distribute without asking for your input or your approval and, on the rare occasion they do ask, agree with everything you say. That may sound pleasant; in reality it's an abdication of their responsibility to reconcile your expertise with their own. You don't know the media any more than they know the ins and outs of your industry. Pushback is what you're paying for, and the odds are you simply won't get it.
3. They Leave You Stranded
Getting booked for prestigious interviews or speaking opportunities is a big part of why many business leaders hire a PR firm. A live presentation is a high-wire act, however, and the firm is supposed to be your safety net. Yet most firms never sit you down to work out what you should communicate and how. They schedule you for interviews and speaking slots with no preparation at all, drop you in front of a reporter or a roomful of strangers, and bid you good luck. When it goes awry, they'll shift the blame to you. Good communication is taught and rehearsed, not left to talent or chance.
4. They Can't Point to Real Results
Struggling PR firms love to report what they are busy on. They are always busy drafting, pitching, and corresponding. All of those things are necessary, of course, but you aren't paying them to be busy. You're paying them to deliver real, measurable results that matter to your business and your bottom line. Most firms will never even ask you what those goals are, and will point to a list of untargeted clippings when pressed to prove their utility. A firm that is worth their cost would commit to outcomes you can hold them to.
Not Convinced Yet?
If you've read this far, you probably already suspect the real problem isn't PR itself. It's who you hire to do it. Navigating the complex and fast-paced media landscape to convey the right message to the right audience is no simple feat, and few business leaders can afford to trade the business they know for a business they don't. The four failures above aren't reasons to do it alone. They're a checklist for the firm you actually choose.
Find the firm where the people who sold you the strategy are the same people executing that strategy, with their own names on the line. Find the one that treats your expertise as the raw material of every story rather than an inconvenience, and that respects you enough to push back when you are wrong. Find the one that prepares you for every interview and stands in your corner when the questions get sharp. And find the one whose performance is measured against your bottom line.
Firms like that are hard to come by. We've built Razor Sharp PR to be one of them.
Be sure to check out our other blogs on useful and interesting public relations topics, like how to earn media coverage at SXSW.