COMMENT: Eight tips to win your agency great trade PR
One of the most common things I hear from agency bosses is “We’re not very good at doing our own PR, but we really should make the effort”.
It usually follows them complaining about the coverage one of their (of course) far less brilliant rivals has been getting.
So what follows is some of the advice I give them. It’s based mainly on my time as editor of B&T so tends to apply to the marketing trade press. But I suspect that some of it can be more widely applied in other B2B sectors. PR people and my fellow editors, please do feel free to disagree with what follows.
- 1. Start!
The most important thing about getting PR for your agency is starting. It sounds obvious, but even if you do it badly and make mistakes along the way, then it’s far better than not trying. In Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy made clear that getting trade press was his first priority when he set up. Do you really think you know better than him?
Good PR for an agency builds a sense of momentum, can impress potential clients and is exceleltn for staff morale.
You almost certainly don’t need to hire a PR agency – you can achieve 90% of what they can, and sometimes more because you understand your product better – if you only put in the time and effort.
- 2. Understand what journalists want
I’ve had some incredibly frustrating conversations with agencies (and even professional PRs doing trade press) where I’ve spent several ages explaining what I’m looking for, only for the conversation to conclude with them telling me how brilliant they are and can I please write a story about that please. Yes you’ve got a message you want to put across, but think about how that might work for the publication.
- 3. Different doors
Every title is different, but remember there is more than one way in and usually more than one relationship to build. The news pages, and more often now, daily news emails, often consist of one-fact stories – somebody has been hired/ fired/ got onto a pitch list/ won an account/ launched a campaign. The comments that follow are reaction to that. Your point of contact on that side is either the news editor, or the relevant reporter – each of whom will generally have their own beat.
Then there’s the features section. That offers a huge variety of opportunities. Don’t email and vaguely offer to write an opinion piece. People do that all the time. Think about the issue you feel strongly about and pitch that. If they say yes, don’t turn it into an ad for yourself – win over the readers with your intelligence and expertise. If you plug yourself, it will get spiked and the journo won’t ask you again; or worse, they’ll publish it and you’ll look like an idiot.
B&T and AdNews both publish a forward features list. (The main reason is so they can sell some ads against them. That’s why sometimes every other bloody feature seems to be about outdoor and online – they’re the people currently supporting the trade press.) But get hold of the list and where you’ve got something intelligent to say, make contact with the features editor who can put you in touch with the journalist commissioned to write it. Remember this process begins long in advance.
- 4. Get to know the journos.
Don’t be bashful. Without contacts, journalists don’t get stories. We like to hear from you. Taking them out for lunch won’t automatically get you written about, but if they know you, and what you stand for, they are more likely to ring you up for a comment next time something relevant comes up.
And a familiar name on the email or voicemail is more likely to be listened to than a stranger when you do have a story. (For instance, as I write this, it’s not even 10am. Since I checked my messages at 10pm last night, I’ve had 39 emails – and that’s not counting spam. It will get worse as the day goes on. Sadly I won’t be able to act on all of them.)
What also helps you to move up the list is tip-offs. If you hear about who’s won a bit of business out in the market; or the gossip about who’s been fired, tip off your favourite journo. If you’ve just lost the pitch, it’s going to be public in an hour or two anyway. If you help the journo break it first, they owe you, and you’ve also just messed up your rival’s PR plans.
You’ll be surprised how much likely the journo will then be to open your next email. Or how much sooner they think of you when a slot suddenly opens up on the profile page.
- 5. Don’t leave it too late
Something that has only just happened, is just about to happen, or is happening right now is what journalists look for. If you did a brilliant experiential campaign and the results are in, it’s probably too late. If you’re lucky it might make a case study against a feature, if the paper happens to be doing something relevant. If you’d photographed the stunt first thing this morning, and emailed the picture by lunchtime then you have a chance.
If you win an award, send out the press release within hours. You’d be amazed how many people are still sending them out weeks afterwards, and wondering why they get no coverage.
For Mumbrella, if you won an award in New York last night, if you haven’t told me by midmorning today, it’s dead as a topic.
- 6. Be accessible.
There are still PRs who think they can be a gatekeeper. I’m a journo in a hurry. I want to put my next story up in 20 minutes. If you won’t let me call your boss directly – and let me have their mobile number; then that’s tough. I’ll call someone I can talk to now. It’s up to you to decide if PR is a priority for you – if it is, then we can do business. If you’ve got other priorities (and I do understand that you have a business to run), then no hard feelings but you’re not going to hear from me again.
The same goes for the magazines too. Just because they’re weekly doesn’t mean the reporter has a week to write their story. Different pages go to press every day. Their deadline is almost certainly only hours away.
People who call back quickly or take a call straight away get asked again.
- 7. Be interesting
The best way of getting quoted is by having something interesting to say. If you play it safe, you’ll barely appear. It’s better to stand for something, even if it annoys some of the people who read it.
- 8. Don’t take it personally.
Sometimes you’ll get bad press. You may be pissed off that it’s there, or even feel it’s been unfair or inaccurate. It’s fine to let the editor know and talk it through – it can probably be sorted out. But don’t whine, and don’t pull up the drawbridge.
In most cases if the trade title has got it wrong they’ll feel they owe you one, and try to make it up to you next time. That’s if you haven’t made it personal. But every editor loves a feud – it’s just not necessarily a good idea to be on the wrong side of one.
And both sides have far more to gain if they can keep good relations.
Feel free to try some of the above out on me. I apologised in advance if I don’t reply to your first email…
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Hi
That was a well written piece that can be made into a book, “What agencies don’t know on selling themselves, but are afraid to ask”. Jokes apart, I just moved into Brisbane & I am getting frustrated knocking agency doors for a job offer. I have worked 11 years in Kuwait & can teach a thing or two about media to a few people, but cannot get any doors open. Probably my PR is wrong, but then again without sounding pompous, probably people in Brisbane are afraid of change.
Are you interested to publish a article of how an outsider views the claustrophobic Brisbane ad industry even though I admit I am only a month & half old here?
Let me know so I can put on the thinking cap.
Merwyn
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Hi Tim – love the PR article. Thanks. Every point is valid and spot on, of course, given you’re the expert!! And great advice for prs and agencies alike. Sophie.
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All ludicrously valid.
Just two points.
1. A good PR agency or consultant will do far more for an agency than simply than getting coverage in the media.
2. Agencies first and foremost need to keep their clients happy. What is the most effective use of their time? Looking after their own PR or looking after their clients business?
Nice piece. I’ll quote bits of this verbatim in forthcoming business development workshops!
Regarding your first point, Tim, maybe the “START” is not as hard as “CONTINUE”. Too often as agencies, we do start. Often just after new year, or winning a pitch. And then we stop as the day-job gets too busy. Pity.
Ta.
J
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Great stuff Tim,
Being persistent, keeping it simple and straightforward is fantastic PR advice Tim.
What about asking all the TV stations to move shows like Underbelly back to 9.30pm so mums and dads with kids don’t have to rush their kids off to bed by 8.30. Guess what, kids can hear the “F” word and sexual grunting noises through walls.
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Nice summary.
In B2B outside the marketing media, I would extend the Be interesting one to include ‘remember to be outward looking not inward – corporate ‘blah blah’ bores everyone’. Most of the time if you change the company name to a competitor in a corporate blah blah statement no one would know the difference!
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Hi Tim,
These are all valid points but I just have one comment to make, your use of ‘PR’ is incorrect. As you’re aware, PR is ‘public relations’, two-way communications between an organisation and its publics.
You are in fact talking about publicity and media relations. This is NOT PR as it is often assumed in Australia, another point to make is that a professional working in PR is a publicist, consultant, PR officer/ Manager/ Executive etc. You cannot make a noun out of PR!
Sorry to be pedantic but if marketing media assume PR is simply publicity,what hope is there for anyone else understanding the industry?
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Great post Tim. After doing our own PR sporadically we now treat our own agency as a client with its own account manager who’s responsible for the activity. The time investment is minimal – we’re talking about a quick release, an email or phone call whenever we’ve got something newsworthy. Building this responsibility into the account manager’s deliverables also works really well and creates incentive to keep the activity and results on track.
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Another point I’d add to ‘number 2’ in Tim’s post is: ‘understand the rules of an exclusive’.
Among other things, many journalsists get rightly excited when they have a sniff of a story they alone have unearthed… so if they do the right thing and come to you for confirmation, respect that. Do not opt instead to think: ‘oh, we better tell everyone now then’ and send out to all related press a news release you were hoping you’d never have to send.
Bad look.
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That’s a fair point, PR. (Are you a noun or a verb in this case?). The intention of this particular piece is focused purely on how to get written about in the trade press. Clearly PR is indeed a much bigger area, of which media relations is but a subset…
And, Dr Who, I couldn’t agree more. There are a couple of people in the industry who I would not go to for a comment about a story involving themselves until the last possible second, because I don’t feel I could trust them to not try to ruin the exclusive by trying to win favour with other outlets.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Great tips and I like everyone else love lists.
thanks for this.
You should also do a tip lists for journos too titled “How to get good stories and not just recycled PR bullshit”
that might help help raise the bar a little there
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