date published / 8 Sep 2009
There’s this big misunderstanding about lunch with journalists. Many business owners think that lunch with a journalist is all about them pitching their product/company and proceed to babble on endlessly about how good their company is or their views on the market that they’re in......Read more
date published / 7 Sep 2009
Here are a few tips for small and medium sized businesses that are thinking of engaging a PR agency.
1. Don’t be tied into a contract – if an agency is any good, it won’t bother with contracts; contracts and formal retainers are for agencies that know they are no good
2. Whatever coverage levels they say you should get for the money you are paying, triple them and throw it back. A £2k monthly retainer is worth more than two bits of piddly regional press. PR should be cost-effective and it should be effective
3. Ask if the agency does online as well as traditional PR – because online PR, which is entirely different to traditional PR, is equally important. If they don’t know what ‘anchor text’ is and why it’s so important, then walk away
4. Ask them if your account will be managed on a day-to-day basis by one of their junior ‘account executives’ – if they say, well, yes, although he or she will report regularly to one of the directors, strike them hard in the solar plexus with an out-thrust knuckle and get out of there quick .....Read more
