Source: Unsplash | Austin Distel
Using a PR firm for your business is something that I would wholeheartedly recommend and since we have been using the magnificent team at Interdependence PR, we have seen a marked increase in our brand and our profitability. Before we began working with Interdependence however we met with a number of PR firms and found many of them to be good, but not quite the right fit for our business. We pride ourselves on both our values and our ethics and some firms which we met with just weren’t on the same page as us. I think it is vital that you do find a company which has its values aligned with yours and these for me are the key values which you should ensure that a PR firm has before you decide to work with them.
Knowledge
The first thing that you should expect from a service provider like this is that they take into account your own core values and understand both your company and your market. Remember that the PR firm are going to be responsible for speaking on behalf of the company, their words and their campaigns must fall in line with what the company is trying to achieve and it must also speak for the company in a way which the market understands. When you first sit down with a PR firm they should be coming at you with ideas which display that they understand your business and the market which you are operating in.
Results
Checking the reputation of a firm is always important ahead of making any enquiries but you should also get a sense from them that they are completely committed to delivering results. You will of course have your own expectations as to what you can achieve through working with a PR company and they should not only be on-board with this, but they should also display a clear drive and a clear ambition to deliver those results at all costs. In my company this is how we work, we don’t accept being second best and we always work to the max in order to achieve our targets, this is why I expect the exact same thing from a company which will essentially be the mouthpiece for our business.
Service
I cannot tell you how many PR firms we met with which just didn’t offer us anywhere near the service that I expect. This is not because I have high expectations from people, it is because may PR firms have these mythical belief that you need them more than they need you, and this can result in a complete lack of customer service. In my view if you can’t offer your customers a high level of service then what other areas of the job are not being completed to a high standard? If you don’t get customer service from the PR firm then my advice would be to move on to the next one.