Can You Guarantee PR Coverage?
Prospective customer: Can you guarantee coverage?
Us: We can set KPIs but there are no 100% guarantees in 'earned' coverage.
PC: Um. Ok, well I'll go to another agency that does guarantee it.
Us: Ok. Sad, but ok.
My honest view? True media coverage has to be earned. By ‘earned’ I mean media coverage that’s been generated organically, without purchase, often through successful news releases or interesting insights resulting in a journalist using the expertise in their article. These journalists want to know they can trust a brand, recognise it as credible and knowledgeable and willingly include the information.
Ultimately, journalists can choose to prioritise what they want to feature. There’s no control of this process, no ad budget to help - it’s all about providing the right information at the right time. It’s about being utterly aware of market context and issues and being helpful with useful information.
Nurturing relationships with journalists, building trust and having open communications is essential. And in turn, they write engaging news angles, deep-dive into issues for their features, use data insights or expert guidance - all to support their audiences. We, as PRs, need to have a strong understanding of their audiences.
Journalists get hundreds of pitches daily, so communications, context and connections really matter. Knowing what may be interesting to one journalist over another, because of their interests, takes understanding. And timing is essential. Miss a beat and your story will be out.
But I understand the justification/guaranteed/safety issue. Ensuring you get bang for the buck is essential. In all the marketing communications available, Public Relations may seem woollier to a decision maker, especially one with their eyes on investments.
Going for the PR agency that can ‘guarantee’ coverage may seem an obvious choice. Afterall, guaranteed coverage ensures ROI, right?
It’s important to question what this guaranteed coverage looks like. Is it high-quality? Is it a media type your target audiences read and respect? Or is it coverage that holds zero value to your brand?
Rather than looking for quantity guarantees, we recommend creating a strategy around Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). It’s important to aim for quality coverage where thought leadership, credibility and trust grows, as well as quantity to amplify messages far and wide. It’s also important to understand what work is being done to get journalist interest. These need KPIs too. Given the right angles, insights and all-important teamwork, we usually far exceed the KPIs agreed, but we’d be foolhardy to guarantee it, when the media quite rightly makes its own decisions about what to feature.
In-fact, by working closely with our clients, building a strategy and setting expected KPI’s, we usually far out-perform expectations. Again, never a given, but a reward for hard work and good, long relationships formed.
Here’s an example of some of our great work last week:
Since January, for one customer alone, we have achieved over 160 pieces of editorial coverage.
We achieved 20+ pieces of coverage in one week for a client.
We are drafting articles for @HR Magazine, @People Management, @Personnel Today and @the HR Director after successful pitches to editors.
What's important in the HR sector is cutting through the noise, understanding the sometimes infinitesimal detail or insight discovered from a client that could turn into a zinger of a story that will help a journalist say yes. We help you get that.