The short answer to this title question would be: no, the magic PR button does not exist - the end. Don’t get me wrong; it would be very nice if it did. I’d pop into the office for an hour, press the magic PR button and spend the rest of the month sunning myself in whatever destination took my fancy. Easy work if you can get it.

A lot of blood, sweat and tears goes into the marketing process and while working in a marketing agency may look – and is – lots of fun, it requires bucket loads of determination, patience and hard work.

Yet, on speaking to clients, they said they believe we simply sprinkle a bit of magic and they end up being featured across relevant industry titles. While we do our best to educate clients on how exactly the PR process works, it can be extremely disheartening to hear how easy they think it is when you’ve spent the month working like crazy to get them top-tier placements.

So, what exactly goes into the PR process?

Here’s what we need from you…

Communication

Content marketers aren’t mind readers, and if we’re going to get clients the best placements, then we need an open line of communication. It may seem as though we’re nagging you to talk to us, but unless you keep in contact with us, we won’t know what’s going on.

Communication certainly doesn’t mean we want information which is haphazardly sent over. We need details – and lots of them! It may be something which you think is insignificant, but it can be gold dust to us. We may be the experts in marketing - and about to become the experts in your industry – but you need to help us make your business a success too.

Open channels of communication are vital to a successful PR campaign

Understanding

We know how precious your business is to you; and appreciate it’s your brand and reputation we’re putting forward to the press – but your success is ours too! It’s important to come to a mutual understanding of just what you expect from us, and we from you.

Tell us what your marketing goals are. Where do you want to be featured? Who do you aspire to be? It can help us to have a better understanding of what you want to achieve, and allow us to set our own goals out for your business too.

Contact

PR is a fast-moving game, and we will need to be able to contact you to secure placements or get further details from you in usual business hours. They may be last minute opportunities or ones which have a short deadline, but we need you to be willing to give us what we need to avoid your competitor nabbing the PR spotlight.

We understand you have a job to do as well, but if you want to see results, then you are going to have to appreciate that PR deadlines are often tight and out of our control – therefore a reliable point of contact is essential.

Commitment

You are making a significant financial investment when you use a marketing agency, but you need need to be fully commitment to your marketing cause, rather than simply throwing cash at it and hoping for the best.

If you aren’t physically and mentally committed to making your marketing strategy a success, then you’re wasting a lot of money on a cause which is never going to take off. Marketing is a creative and exciting industry, and we want you to be as committed and excited as we are. Working with an agency is a two-way relationship.

Realistic Expectations

Yes, we may have secured clients features on leading press titles – and there’s good reason for it as they followed the previous steps – but, it doesn’t mean you are immediately going to be featured in the same publications. As I mentioned earlier, we don’t just have a button we can press which gets your name and cause in the media. We need a story and the right angle to get you featured in those places.

It’s also worth remembering that while you may want to be featured in popular newspapers and magazines in the hope it boosts your brand and sales, if the title or article isn’t relevant to your business or audience then you won’t see results.

Client expectations can be a little steep

And here’s what we’ll do…

Create the Story

From chatting to you about your business, your aspirations and finding out what you want to be known for, we’ll then look at the data and numbers behind how your business is performing online and look at your competitor’s performance to create a story we know will get you traction.

Many businesses often think stories must be specific to their business offering, which often ends up reading like a sales pitch. This is a big no-no! It’s about taking a step outside of your business and looking at what your industry is talking about.

For example, just because you sell computers it doesn’t mean you need to talk about why you sell them. You can – and should – talk about topics such as data security online, the latest tech news and how-to guides.

Find the Hook

We need a hook when contacting editors with stories. It’s no good us declaring xyz story will be brilliant for their audience if we have no real reason to back it up.

We’ll spend the time researching the publication, looking at whether your competitors were featured and the types of stories they post to find our hook. Without a hook, we’re essentially pitching a story and hoping for the best – which is certainly not advisable.

Make it Relevant

There may be times when we have to mold your business or title idea to fit the publication we’re pitching to, in order to make what you’re trying to say relevant to the publications audience. We’ll never compromise your business ethos and anywhere you are featured will be relevant for your business. We’ll also explain how the placement will benefit your business.

Pitch your Business

Once we’ve got the story and found our hook, we’ll then pitch you as the industry experts or your titles to the press. To generate quality content on sites relevant to your business takes time. We work hard at creating relationships with journalists and editors and pitch your story to them.

If we’re working on a piece with a journalist then due to the nature of the business deadlines are often short, this is when we need you to be quick off the mark and able to give us the details we need. Otherwise, our relationships can break down and leave us pushed out of contacting that publication again in the future to pitch your business again or other clients.

Work on the Content

We’ll work on the content in conjunction with you to ensure that it’s completely authentic and includes all the relevant details. While we may be the experts in marketing and content, we aren’t in your industry, so we’ll need your help to make sure the articles are in-line with your business and industry. Once the piece is complete, we’ll then send this over to the editor or journalist we’re working with.

Get Your Piece Published

If we’ve done all the previous steps right, then your piece will be published. After this, it’s time to get sharing the post on your social channels to help promote the post out to a wider audience. There’s no time for rest though, as it’s back to the beginning again!

Finally, here’s a few do’s and don’ts to help us make PR magic:

Do:

• Be enthusiastic and invested in your marketing campaign
• Keep us up to date – the more information you give, and contact you have with us the better
• Understand what we do, the process and time it takes
• Be prepared to help us – you’re the experts. We want to share your industry opinions with the world, not ours!

Don’t:

• Not stay in contact – we need your guidance and input. While we can make it happen, and have the insights and tools to do so, we still value what you have to say
• Set unrealistic goals – it’s unrealistic to expect top-tier placements if you aren’t willing to work for them or give us the right information
• Be uncommitted – we get excited about working with different business, we want you to be excited about working with us too

Lucy Stevens is Content Marketing Executive at Datify, a data driven digital marketing agency.