With the clouds of recession in Australia now fading more PR Director’s and PR Manager’s seem to be deciding that its time to ramp up the public relations and communication effort. As a consequence PR agency relationships are being put under the microscope resulting in an upsurge in PR agency reviews and selection processes.
Evidence comes from an increase in announcements by marketers of competitive PR agency pitches being planned or having taken place, and successful PR agencies issuing press releases about their wins.
But with the increased activity around PR agency reviews and selection processes, comes the inevitable grumbles. Whether it’s just from sore losers, or whether some of the practices employed in choosing a PR agency do genuinely leave a lot to be desired, it’s hard to tell.
Having spent 30 years on the PR agency side, and been through my share of pitches, I’ve seen too much that has gone wrong. And because I strongly feel that much could be done to produce improved results for both the client and agency if more structure, process and commonsense were applied, PR agency selection is a service I’m now offering.
A lot of the gripes from PR agencies comes from the pitch process itself – and I will write about this at some point in the future. But I think as many frustrations arise in the first part of the process.
What my experience tells me is that many PR Directors and Managers, by treating the initial stages of a the pr agency selection process as more of an administrative chore, actually end up eliminating PR agencies that might actually be the best choice in the final analysis.
Some of the key factors that determine how you get the best short list to finally pitch include:
1. How you handle the incumbent PR agency. If, as many organizations do, you aren’t up front with the incumbent and they suddenly find themselves in a competitive pitch with a group of pre-selected agencies it doesn’t send the right message to your future PR partner. If you treat your current PR agency this way, isn’t that a good indicator as to how they are likely to be treated once the honeymoon is over?
2. How you arrive at your initial list of PR agencies. The PR industry is diverse, especially in these days of specialisation. Yet how some organisations arrive at a list of PR agencies they want to hear from is not only frightening, but often incredibly hit and miss. A lot of time needs to go into this part of the process. Regretably often that doesn’t happen. So the process is flawed, and very restricted, right from the beginning.
3. Your brief/RPF (request for proposal). It’s not easy to prepare a proper brief, but inadequate and poorly thought through briefs are probably the biggest complaint by PR agencies. Too often organisations delegate the task to someone within the Department who has the time. But that’s normally a more junior person without the right experience for the task. The Brief or RFP is probably the single biggest factor in an organisation getting the PR agency that is the right fit for it.
4. Your qualifying pre-selection process. Too often a number of agencies are asked to provide a written credentials or capabilities submission and the decision as to who goes to the short-list and actual pitch is made solely on this without the opportunity for face-to-face contact. If the brief is inadequate then this process may result in the potential best agency being excluded because something has been excluded or misunderstood. This is often the single biggest gripe and frustrations of agencies and it directly leads to bad decision making at this crucial preliminary phase of the PR selection process.
5. Management of the initial phase. This is not a job for a junior or an administration person. It needs someone who is a PR decision maker who is going to be personally engaged with all those invited. From this group will come your eventual new PR agency partner. You want to create an environment that provides every opportunity for the right agency not to get lost or eliminated because of administrative procedures. So be connected, be available, and meet the agencies face-to-face. It’s worth the time commitment.
How organisations go about selecting a PR agency is changing. However, regrettably many of those involved in the PR agency selection process have little understanding of how agencies work. Too often, in my experience, the importance and relevance of this initial part of the process is completely under-estimated.
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