I’ve written before about the potential value of hiring an outside public relations firm to either handle publicity for you or to supplement your in-house team.
That said, too often, the relationship fails, at least partly because a poor working agreement is established.
To start, there needs to be a clear delineation of tasks, especially if you keep an internal team. There’s little doubt the in-house staff is best suited for certain tasks, while the outside team can provide different resources and a fresh perspective on other chores.
It’s important to provide the hired team with s examples of past work, including press releases, video packages, advisories, fact sheets, white papers, bylined articles and op-eds. Include your current boilerplate and any particular style points, especially ones outside the norm, that the utility uses in its writing.
Stay in regular contact with your outside team. A weekly Zoom call (and occasional in-person meetings) to delegate tasks, discuss ongoing projects and establish deadlines is helpful. Probably, you’ll be talking to, emailing or texting someone on your team most days.
Try to plan ahead as far as you can for the best results. There surely will be some occasions when emergencies or issues with short deadlines arise, but everyone does their work when given time to prepare.
Those are the basics, but here are a few other things to consider:
Be realistic. No matter how good the firm is and how much they brag, they aren’t going to turn mundane news into a glowing profile on “20/20.”
Treat your firm well. They aren’t your slaves. Yes, they work for you, but treat them like you’d want to be treated. I worked for enough PR firms to know that lousy clients rarely got a team’s best effort.
Don’t worry about the minutiae. Delaying a press release for days because you can’t decide if “a” works better than “the” in a sentence is just a waste of time.
If you trust the firm, take its advice. Since you’re hiring outside counsel for expertise, resources and experience you don ’t have in-house, shouldn’t you listen to them most of the time? You’re hiring that counsel for their expertise — expertise your in-house team theoretically lacks.
Expect there to be some disagreements about direction from time to time (debate can be healthy), but you should, at minimum, consider its ideas. You’re paying for it after all.