For businesses that are new to the process of hiring a PR agency it can be challenging, especially when considering the number of agencies out there. It’s certainly a crowded marketplace when it comes to public relations suppliers.
Even though there isn’t one set way for deciding which PR agency to work with, there are a number of things to consider before you hire one:
- Results and success rate: a decent PR agency should be more than capable of generating good results for its clients. Before working with an agency, you should ask to see examples of its work or at least some case studies. At Radioactive PR, we frequently showcase our work by creating and posting case studies on our website and social channels, like this roundup we published on LinkedIn. We’re proud of what we do and like to shout about it!
- Client experience: by looking an agency’s client roster, you will be able to find out if they have experience that suits your needs. This isn’t to say you should use a specialist agency (e.g. if you’re a consumer tech brand and use a tech PR agency etc.), you should look out more for what the PR agency actually does for its clients and the results it achieves. Some of what we do at Radioactive is creative PR, where we come up with creative stunts and campaigns to generate awareness (as well as other objectives depending on the activity). We also do a lot of PR for SEO, where we run campaigns that will ultimately aim to boost a client’s website ranking. These activities – as well what else we do (learn more here) – as are not specific to an industry but are targeted at fulfilling a specific need.
- Industry recognition: this doesn’t necessarily just mean awards – campaigns only win awards when they are successful but many awards will have an entry fee, meaning it is already slightly biased at the entry stage. Though award recognition is a good way of showcasing successful campaigns PR agencies have undertaken, other industry recognition might mean what credible people in the industry say about the agency (e.g. if they’ve been recommended to you by someone you trust etc.) or if the agency is noisy about what it’s up to.
- Rapport: once you think the agency is capable of good work and you’ve seen some good examples, it’s important that you have good rapport with the team. If you feel you can get on with the people working within the PR agency it will be easier to trust them to do a good job. Clients and agencies need to work together well to ensure they have the best chance of generating good PR results.
If you’re at the early stages of looking for a PR agency, you may also find this guide to what you should consider before appointing one, useful.
If you’d like to discuss any of your requirements for PR, we’d love to hear from you.