Hiring a PR agency is a powerful way to drive your business or organizational goals. But simply handing the reins over to an external firm and expecting them to single-handedly generate media coverage won’t necessarily lead to success; collaboration is essential. A strong working relationship, built on a well-oiled foundation of information sharing, is the best recipe for a successful PR program. 

In 2024, the 24/7 news cycle is faster than ever and the media are short-staffed and overworked. Everyone wants media coverage and the competition has never been fiercer. For that reason, it’s essential that PR firms and the organizations they represent work in lock-step, identifying the most relevant stories to offer the media, nurturing relationships, and adding value for reporters.

By effectively leveraging the expertise of both your team and your PR agency, your organization can achieve its communications and media relations goals. Here are some key tips for maximizing the PR firm-client relationship. 

What a PR Agency Should and Can Bring

When hiring a PR agency, it’s important to understand the range of expertise and services available to help you achieve your communications goals effectively. Here are the attributes we recommend looking for:

• Strategic thinking: The ability to ingest a client’s mission, messaging, and business goals and transform them into an applicable and effective communications strategy.
• Mindful storytelling: The talent to craft client messaging into powerful narratives and story offers that are palatable to the media.
• Media literacy: Attuned knowledge of the media landscape and best practices for interacting with newsrooms.
• A thumb on the pulse: The eye for flagging relevant and creative news cycle hooks and trends that can be tapped to offer a client’s expert insights or inspire new media offers.
• Editorial guidance: The expertise to guide clients on what makes a story newsworthy, along with the best editorial and storytelling practices from a media perspective. 
• Narrative mastery: Skill in mining useful and perhaps overlooked information from a client’s previous interviews, owned content, etc. to turn it into a riveting new media offer. 

Tip: Setting expectations is crucial. We will turn over every stone to get you into The Wall Street Journal, but we’ll also tell you when and why it’s a stretch. 

What Your Organization Should and Can Bring

To maximize the effectiveness of your PR firm, it’s crucial for your organization to contribute certain elements. Here are the key resources you should provide:

• A clear view of goals and messaging: Define the top two or three overarching goals and strategic messages per quarter to guide a productive and focused strategy. In PR, priorities can shift as quickly as the newscycle, but having a clear ‘North Star’ of objectives and brand identity helps your PR firm align with your vision.
• Insider expertise and data: Provide your organization’s insights on evolving industry challenges and trends. While an external PR agency brings broad media relations expertise, they may lack in-depth company-specific insights and industry knowledge. Media prefer concrete, quantifiable information, so sharing insights from internal units like sales, business development, events, R&D, and the C-suite can help your PR agency generate impactful stories, even without major news announcements.
• Willing and available spokespeople: Make sure your spokespeople understand the value of a quick response. They should be willing and available to relay nuggets of expertise that your PR team can morph into a quote, commentary offer, or op-ed related to current trends and issues.  
• Calendars and key information: Share executive travel schedules, upcoming milestones, key benchmarks, and other significant events. This information can help your PR agency plan and execute timely and relevant media engagements.

Tip: Designate a dedicated liaison, separate from the CEO or managing director, to regularly sync with a PR agency. This approach positions all stakeholders to maximize their time and resources.

What a Successful PR Partnership Should and Can Look Like 

For a PR partnership to truly thrive, it requires consistent communication and collaboration from both sides. Here’s what that should include:

• Communication, communication, communication! Nothing is too big or small to share. At Gova10, we make it our priority to be in touch with each client AT LEAST once a day, every day.
• Amicable rapport: You and your PR team should cultivate a strong working rapport where both sides act as mutual sounding boards to identify and shape great media offers.
• Clear alignment: You and your PR team should be 100% aligned on your organization’s objectives and core messaging – even, and especially, when these goals shift. 

Tip: Synergy and mutual respect go a long way. Trust each other’s expertise and know that both parties are in this together.

PR is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

A good PR relationship is vital to ensuring a steady drumbeat of coverage for short- and long-term outcomes. The best way to view public relations is as a marathon, even if it consists of compounding sprints along the way. The longer the relationship, the better your PR agency can understand an organization and achieve success that can have a transformative impact. 

Are you ready to explore a value-driven PR partnership? Get in touch with us today.