I was interviewed yesterday by Bruce Hurwitz for his Blog-Talk Radio show, “Bruce Hurwitz Presents,” as part of a series of interviews with women entrepreneurs. The show is available on-demand as a podcast and the topic is “PR & Marketing for Start-ups & U.S.- Based Foreign Companies.”
Have a listen! Click “play’ below, and then click the arrow on the radio dashboard that appears. (There is a 10-second delay after clicking the arrow on the radio dashboard.)
Lucy Siegel
…But It Does Help Magnify It!
There are trends and buzzwords in every industry, and “thought leadership” is currently on everyone’s lips in the world of public relations. Actually, this has spread way beyond the PR industry and is often heard now in the business world as a whole.
According to Wikipedia, a thought leader is “business jargon for an entity that is recognized for having innovative ideas.” The business media have featured articles ranging from how to “engage” [another buzzword] thought leaders, to how thought leaders can engage employees. Among many articles on thought leadership, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) weighed in with “How to Become a Thought Leader in Six Easy Steps.”
If you read between the lines in the HBR article, you see that the headline is a little misleading. The article really tells you how to leverage the thought leadership you already have, rather than giving lessons on becoming a thought leader. The truth is, the best PR in the world can’t turn a follower into a leader. PR can, however, help people who actually are thought leaders to be spokespersons for their organizations, to draw attention to and build credibility for their companies.
Thought leadership doesn’t have to come from big company executives. Entrepreneurs in start-ups can leverage it to build their companies into “challenger brands” (companies that give brand leaders a run for their money). Steve Jobs was one of the most famous thought leader entrepreneurs. Although he ended up CEO of one of the biggest technology companies in the world, he started as an entrepreneur working in a garage.
Bridge Global Strategies has had the pleasure of helping entrepreneurs in a variety of industries to make waves by communicating their innovative ideas. Public relations can really make a small company soar when there’s a truly innovative thinker at the helm who has a good product or service to offer. With a good PR program, start-up companies can change their industries.
Lucy Siegel
I’m embarrassed by the totally unprofessional, unethical and childish behavior this week of the so-called leaders of my profession, the board and staff of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
I’ve been a PRSA member for many years and have paid dues and event fees for employees who’ve wanted to participate (something that most large agencies don’t do any more – score another point for PR boutiques). This week
Jack O'Dwyer
PRSA is holding its annual convention, and the organization has been all over the industry news - not due to the program, but because of its discrimination against one industry journalist, Jack O’Dwyer, publisher and editor-in-chief of the eponymous Jack O’Dwyers Newsletter.
O’Dwyer has been in a nearly 20-year-long vendetta with PRSA’s national staff and board. He scrutinizes PRSA’s finances every year and has been a thorn in the organization’s side by making extremely negative editorial comments about its expenses, staff and board. As a result, PRSA has singled O’Dwyer out for special treatment: last year he was charged full attendance fees at the convention while other journalists were invited free of charge. This year he was barred from attending altogether.
Here’s the thing: O’Dwyer is entirely right about PRSA’s expenses (and the behavior of the staff and board have proven him right about them, too). PRSA national has lost over $850K in the first nine months of this year. The association’s operating income vs. expenses barely broke even for 2010, and showed a loss of close to half a million in 2009. Meanwhile, I’m paying a total of $500 in annual dues. Of that, PRSA national gets $225 for general membership, and Counselors Academy, a PRSA special section, gets $195. The chapter gets only $80. Yet the chapter’s frequent and widely varied programming is every bit as good as what the national organization provides. Most of the PRSA services provided in the NYC metro area come from the chapter, not PRSA national. Yet PRSA forces people to be national members in order to be chapter members.
I served on the board and as an officer of PRSA’s New York chapter for many years. I’ve visited PRSA’s national headquarters in downtown Manhattan on several occasions. There’s a ton of office space and a large staff down there. However, it’s volunteers who do all the program development. It’s not as if the money we members pay in dues is being well-spent on developing a positive image of the profession. It’s apparent to everyone that this industry association has done a miserably poor job of PR for PR for as long as anyone can remember. So where’s the value for our money?
I feel an obligation to support the local chapter with my membership dues because of the important service it provides to the entire NYC PR community. I’ve also received value from PRSA’s Counselors Academy. Yet it galls me to pay those national dues every year.
No matter what PRSA’s national board and staff think of Jack O’Dwyer’s editorial coverage, their discrimination against one journalist is an embarrassment – not just to me, but to the entire public relations profession.
Lucy Siegel
Does every organization deserve PR? My answer: No, but…
This has been debated in the public relations industry for many years. Some feel that just as everyone has a right to legal counsel, organizations have a right to PR counsel (even the governments of countries such as Iran and Qaddafi-ledLibya). Others disagree on the grounds that it’s morally wrong to provide bad guys like Qaddafi with the tools of persuasion we can offer. I don’t believe everyone has a right to PR. But the line between those who don’t deserve PR for ethical reasons and those who do isn’t always a clear one.
I just read an article published by the conservative American think tank, The Heritage Foundation, chastising the U.S. State Department for conducting an information campaign aimed at American students. When it comes to doing PR for the U.S., the State Department by law is only allowed to target people outside the U.S., and communications aimed at U.S. citizens is forbidden. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 actually prohibits this for convoluted and complex reasons that are now being questioned in Congress.
I find it ironic that an important branch of our own government is denied the right to public relations outreach to U.S.citizens when foreign countries have that right. Among those exercising that right (by hiring U.S. lobbyists and/or public relations professionals) are Afghanistan, Iran, Russia (with no fewer than eight lobbying and PR organizations on its payroll, including Ketchum) and China (which has 11 on its payroll, including DDB Worldwide Communications Group, and Brown, Lloyd James, the PR company that once represented Libya).
Just after 9/11, the World Economic Forum (WEF) decided to move its annual meeting usually held in Davos to New York, to support the city. I was working at Publicis at that time and the company, which represents WEF, had the monumental task of moving a meeting with thousands of participants with a just a couple of month’s notice. Publicis in New York was asked to help. My group was given responsibility for handling public relations for a delegation to the conference from the Council for Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Because Osama bin Ladin and all but one of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, sentiment here was extremely hostile towards the country and its people, and the Council’s goal was to improve American attitudes towards the Saudi Arabian business community. My team was charged with setting up interviews for members of the delegation with national business media and leaders of the business community, and arranging speaking engagements.
Since it wasn’t fair to blame the acts of Al Qaida on the entire Saudi business community, I felt the Council had a right to be heard in the U.S. I put aside my own feelings about 9/11, and about Saudi statements on Israel and Jews over many years, and worked with the Council.
I’ve represented several other clients over the years that were considered morally repugnant by most people.
One was a company on the verge of bankruptcy due to extreme wrong-doing by several senior executives. People were dying because these executives had approved the sale of a product they knew to be harmful. We took on this client because the thousands of employees at the company who had nothing to do with the incident were in danger not only of losing their jobs but also of not finding new ones because of their association with the company. In addition, we realized that if the company went bankrupt, it wouldn’t be able to pay court-ordered damages to victims. Our work wasn’t intended to whitewash the executives’ crimes, it was geared towards the economic survival of the company so it could meet its obligations.
I would never force an employee to work with a client if it violated her personal values. We each have to follow our own moral compass.
Occasionally I hear about PR firms taking on assignments to “rebrand” terrorist or totalitarian countries, including organizations that are known to engage in mass murder or torture. I would never work with clients of that kind. I won’t be put in a position where my skills are being used to exonerate wrong-doing. Those who accept such assignments find ways to rationalize their decisions, but I couldn’t.
Lucy Siegel
Ten or 15 years ago, my answer would have been, no, go into marketing or management consulting. But I feel much better about the industry’s future these days.
Ten or 15 years ago, ad agencies were very much in ascendance and they had pocketbook power (i.e., the overwhelming majority of most companies’ marketing and communications budgets). Public relations, then considered the poor cousin of advertising, was dominated not only by the ad industry, but by men at the highest levels of the profession. At the lower levels, PR was considered “a “velvet ghetto” overrun by women. That might explain why PR salaries were (and still are) pathetic compared to advertising.
For many years, the public image of public relations has been negative. The predominant (and inaccurate, unfair) stereotype of a PR practitioner has been someone who engages in twisting the truth (described by the pejorative terms “flaks” and “spin”).
Today, however, ad agencies are often bypassed by clients who see the costs as out of proportion to the benefits, and who look to PR as not only more cost-efficient, but also as generally more effective in disseminating most corporate and product messages. Salaries are still not great, but there’s no salary growth anywhere right now (according to the New York Times, salaries have been dropping across theU.S.). I don’t know the statistics, but it seems that young men are entering the profession in greater numbers, and (speaking cynically) that should help bring about better salaries for everyone in the industry.
What’s brought about these changes is the advent of online social interaction, which has provided a means for consumers to influence each other more than they are influenced by ad messages or even media coverage. PR has always been about two-way communication; listening to people and interpreting their attitudes in order to better position an organization and communicate its messages. These skills are of paramount importance in a social media context. With new skills to master and novel online tools to harness, the PR profession has been changing rapidly. It’s an exciting time for PR, which has taken on much greater importance in this environment, a fact that marketing professionals and the C-suite have acknowledged.
PR has come into its own, and it’s attracting new college graduates in large numbers. I asked our fall semester intern, a senior communications major atCityCollege, why she chose PR. Here’s her response.
Lucy Siegel
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Why PR? A College Student’s Perspective
Catese Shirer, Bridge's fall intern
When I was young I never aspired to be a public relations professional. What I had in mind was a career as a lawyer, doctor or teacher, the kinds of professions that my parents imagined for me! So how and why did I get into public relations?
To start with, I never knew this profession existed until I was in high school. At the time, I aspired to be a top-of-the-line reporter covering the latest news. However, the more I learned about journalism the more I realized it was a very intense and competitive field. While there’s nothing wrong with competition, I didn’t like the idea of competing with my co-workers to have my story chosen for publication over theirs.
In addition, my perception was that journalism is all about relaying cold, hard facts. I knew that journalists are not allowed to be subjective. In PR, however, I sensed that I could allow my creative juices to flow. PR allowed me to think outside the box, voice my ideas and help turn those ideas into reality.
One of the things I look for in my career is versatility, and PR fits the bill. The work is ever-changing, and so is the field of public relations. I come into work knowing that each day will be different. I’m able to stay connected with the world through social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I can also plan events, meet new people and network all at the same time. There’s so much variety that I know I won’t be bored.
Don’t get me wrong – PR is not all “glitz and glam.” It’s necessary to put in time and effort and be really dedicated in order to succeed. Client needs have to be met accurately and efficiently. It takes a strong work ethic and an outgoing personality to make it, and I feel I have both. I’ve chosen this field because I expect PR to be a fulfilling, meaningful and challenging career. That’s why I’m here!
Catese Shirer, Intern, Bridge Global Strategies
Social media has become the 21st century’s fastest growing means of communication. On September 22, 2011 the whole world was interested in the f8 conference where Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook’s new functions and applications. Two days earlier, Google formerly introduced its new Google+. These two companies are fighting for dominance in social media while the whole world is watching.
We enjoyed the following infographics on social media and thought you would, too. First, however, take a look at this simple graph we created to show the results of a poll we did of social media network preferences in the 18-25 age group in the U.S. versus Europe. An equal number of people were polled in the U.S. and Europe (Hungary and France).
We polled ages 18-25 in Europe and the US about their preference in social media.
This infographic is a good overview from Mashable showing some of the statistics behind social media marketing: http://on.mash.to/oTC1ri
The importance of Facebook profile photos is something marketers should be aware of. It may seem like just one more thing to think about, but the statistics on this infographic show the need to build a strategy around your Facebook profile photos: http://bit.ly/mXnb0b
The hottest question in marketing today is just how effective social media marketing really is, and how one can measure the ROI. Here’s some data on this topic: http://bit.ly/rh3axo
Sometimes the growing number of social media choices make it hard to know which ones best suits your needs. Here’s Guy Kawasaki’s decision tree to help you out! http://bit.ly/nSqH4o
Social Media has grown tremendously over the past five years. The Huffington Post published this Infographic showing the demographics of that growth: http://huff.to/oIFI3J
by Alexandra Huebner
Frequently new clients don’t really know how to work with us when they first hire us. There are a few common problems, and start-ups (our specialty), whether domestic or from overseas, are more likely to experience them.
A steakhouse appetite on a fast-food budget
The best marketing directors we’ve worked with are excellent at prioritizing what’s essential now versus what can wait until they can afford it. Most marketing directors at start-ups worked for companies with bigger budgets and more back-up internally in previous jobs. They’re very needy when it comes to PR and marketing communications. They want a lot of help, but can’t afford a big budget. Prioritizing is essential in that environment.
A winning formula in one country may not work in others
The first common mistake business people from other countries make is assuming that the market here can’t be that much different from their own. Companies from outside the U.S. often start a relationship with a PR company here by asking for the same services they received at home: “Here’s what we want from you. We need you to [choose one:] “set up a press conference,” [or] “arrange Wall Street Journal and New York Times interviews and get our CEO on the ‘Today’ show.”
They don’t know how the U.S. media works and how different it is from their own country. We have to explain that press conferences are rarely held in the U.S. to make a corporate announcement – unless it’s Steve Jobs announcing the launch of the iPad or BP trying to manage the communications after an oil spill. They aren’t aware of how social media is being used in public relations and marketing communications in the U.S., since social media is mostly just social (so far) in a lot of countries. The size and diversity of the United States is just an intellectual concept to them and not something they’ve experienced, so they think PR will cost about the same here as it does at home.
We’re consultants. Ask us what to do, don’t tell us what to do.
The second mistake is telling us what to do instead of asking us what we think should be done. In many other countries, public relations doesn’t garner as much respect as it does here. Some of you are snickering, reading this, because the PR industry has its own image problems in theU.S., and we often feel we don’t get enough respect. Nevertheless, we have it good compared to PR people in many parts of the world. It’s not uncommon for the most senior PR person in the company to report directly to the CEO and sit on the senior management committee. That’s respect.
We can’t help if we don’t know what’s really going on
When companies get started with a PR firm, it’s really important for them to brief the firm thoroughly and answer questions honestly and openly. The PR industry’s code of ethics requires that confidential client information be kept confidential. A company that is nervous about this can require its PR firm to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
If a company is secretive with its PR firm, the PR firm can’t help position the company favorably among competitors. If there’s a big problem the PR firm doesn’t know about and it comes out, the PR team is in a very awkward and difficult position of receiving media calls about an issue they didn’t know exists. Delays in responding and hesitation about how to answer difficult questions cause the client to look bad to the media.
When a company hires a PR firm, there’s a learning curve on both sides. We have to learn about a client’s company, products and/or services and goals, and the client needs to find out the best way of working with us. A good client/agency relationship and a satisfying outcome (for both the client and the agency) are much more likely if we can get started the right way.
Lucy Siegel
In my last blog post, I listed the top four questions about PR firms’ billing practices. I promised Part 2 to elaborate further on this topic. Here are the other “must-knows” about how public relations companies bill.
If you spend less time than you estimated for your monthly minimum fee, do you refund the fee that wasn’t used?
Different companies have different policies about this, but generally speaking, no, most agencies do not refund the unused fee. As for Bridge Global Strategies, we budget in blocks of three months’ worth of time. If we estimate that the work will cost $10,000 worth of hours each month, and in the first month we have to go over that amount of time by $2,000 (with the client’s approval) the extra time can either be subtracted from the following two months’ time, or if the client doesn’t want us to cut back during the other two months, then at the end of the three-month period we will bill the extra $2,000.
By the same token, if we spend only $8,000 the first month, we will still charge for $10,000, and $2,000 worth of time will roll over to the second month. The rolled-over time can be used in the second or third month. Then we start fresh with the next three months’ budget.
If you spend more time during those three months, you charge more, but if you spend less, you don’t refund the fee. That seems grossly unfair!
It may seem unfair, but please keep in mind that if we take on your company as a client, we have reserved staff time to work for you, and we’ve given up the opportunity to work for one of your competitors. We make an agreement with you for a certain amount of work over a certain amount of time, and we have to pay our staff.
Do we have to sign a contract for a year, or can we make an agreement for less than that? Do you work on a project basis?
Again, different agencies have different policies about project work. All PR companies, including my own, are happy to work on a project basis. The differences from agency to agency lie in the minimum amount of fee charged for working on a project. Our minimum project fee is equivalent to our minimum monthly fee.
For ongoing work that flows from month to month without a finish date, a one-year contract is not necessary. We can make an agreement for six months, renewable automatically unless cancelled by either the client or us. Sometimes a six-month contract is a good idea in the beginning. It gives us a better idea of the actual time we will spend so it can be adjusted at the end of that time for the next six months. It also gives a client the chance to see some results, and gives us time to prove our value to the company so that ongoing spending can be justified.
What else besides your fee do we have to pay for?
We generally have outside expenses for services of vendors we hire on behalf of a client, and those are billed in addition to our fees. These could range from electronic wire services for distributing news releases, to printing, hotel space and food and beverages for an event, travel on behalf of a client, media monitoring fees, AV production fees, graphic design fees, and more.
Some agencies markup these outside expenses. Why? What is marked up and what is not? What is the common mark-up percentage?
Mark-up of outside vendors’ costs started in the advertising industry and found its way into the public relations agency world many years ago. We mark up services that we purchase and then spend time supervising. Example: we mark up news release distribution services and media monitoring services. We do not mark up travel expenses or office expenses.
The percentage of markup varies from agency to agency. Some do not mark up at all, and some agency owners mark up as much as 30 percent. It’s very common to see a 17.65 percent markup. Many clients wonder where this odd figure comes from. Actually, 17:65 percent of a vendor’s cost billed to the client as markup is the same as a 15 percent commission from a vendor. Traditionally the ad industry received a 15 percent commission on the cost of clients’ advertising space. If the amount charged to an advertiser was $1,000, the media outlet would pay the ad agency $150 as a commission. This is the same amount of return that the agency would receive from markup of an outside vendor bill by 17.65 percent. (If the actual cost of an outside vendor’s charge was $850, and the agency added a 17.65% commission to that when billing the client, the total client bill would be $1,000.) Both methods yield 15 percent of the combined total of the vendor expense and the agency commission.
The key question is why agencies mark up expenses in the first place. Some agency owners would answer this candidly (not publicly), “Because we can.” PR agency executives think of this amount as gross margin and build it into the agency’s billing systems as a way to assure overall profitability. I believe most agencies would forego the markup if they could charge for every hour spent on a client’s behalf, including negotiating vendor costs each year, checking each bill, and doing the bookkeeping to pay the vendors and then bill the clients. But it’s impossible to capture all of that time and assign it fairly to each client.
There is also the issue of cash flow: we receive some bills literally the day after we incur a charge. We collect all outside expenses and bill them to clients once a month, and our clients typically take 30 days to pay us. By the time we get reimbursed, it could be eight weeks after we pay the vendor. Many agencies offer to forego the markup if the client will receive and pay the bills from vendors directly. But most companies don’t want to do that. We get a better deal on the rates we pay because we have a bigger volume of business for these vendors. Also, corporate staff aren’t the ones dealing with the service companies, we are.
When do PR agencies bill and what are usual payment terms?
Typically billing is done once a month, and most firms bill “net 30 days.”. For projects, most firms bill some of the fee and estimated expenses up front, some in the middle, and some at the end after work is complete. It isn’t unusual for an agency to bill monthly base fees for ongoing work in advance, so that the payment is due while the work it covers is still being done. We do this at Bridge.
I hope that this Q&A will be helpful the next time you negotiate billing with a public relations firm. Often clients don’t know what questions to ask prior to starting a working relationship with an agency. The unpleasant surprise of getting charged for something unexpectedly can be damaging to the agency/client relationship.
Lucy Siegel
The way public relations firms bill for their services seems a mystery to many clients. Since mysteries in billing are neither good nor necessary, I’m going to answer questions we frequently get from clients about this. There are some variations in billing methods by different PR companies, but the basic principals are the same. Varying too much from
these general billing rules is unwise for any PR company that wants to stay in business.
1. How do you charge for your services?
We charge based on the length of time it takes to do the work, and the level of difficulty of our services. I assign an hourly billing rate to each staff member at Bridge Global Strategies. The rates are based on the salary and amount of experience of each individual.
2. What are your hourly billing rates and how do you come up with them?
Our hourly rates range from $120/hour to $350/hour. We do not charge clients for the time spent by interns. (This is not at all universal, since many firms do charge for intern time. In addition, we pay our interns, which is not widespread in the PR industry.). We take into consideration the tasks that are being performed and not just the usual hourly rate of the person performing them. For example, sometimes I do work that someone at a much lower level could do. We have a small staff, and if more hands-on work is necessary to meet a deadline, everyone pitches in. I don’t charge my usual hourly rate of $350/hour for lower-level work.
I learned from my management experience at other agencies how to calculate hourly rates so they will cover overhead, pay salaries and leave some profit after our expenses are paid. Not every hour spent by our staff is billable to a client. We have to allocate time for administrative tasks, training, holidays and vacations, etc. All of this non-billable time has to be calculated into our billing rates along with our rent, equipment and other costs that are not billed directly to clients. We are able to charge lower rates than larger PR companies because we don’t support the kind of overhead they do. Bigger agencies have layers of non-revenue-producing staff that we don’t. Public companies have to set aside revenues to pay shareholder dividends.
3. These rates sound like law firm rates! Why are they so high? We could do it ourselves for a lot less.
We hear this sometimes from people who have never worked with a PR firm before. Our rates are not high. Larger agencies in the northeast of the U.S. charge considerably more for people at every level. (And law firms charge $600 or $700/hour and up for partners’ time and a couple hundred dollars an hour for newly minted lawyers.) As for doing PR internally, my blog post about the hidden costs of in-house PR shows that it’s a lot more expensive than most people realize.
4. Do you charge a monthly fee? Is it a flat fee? How do you come up with it?
We charge a minimum fee every month that includes a certain number of our hours. It is not a flat fee. If the amount of work ends up taking more time than is covered by our monthly minimum fee, we charge for the extra time.
Before we start working with each client, we develop an estimate of how many hours it will take to do the work to accomplish our goals for the client, and we base our monthly minimum fee on that estimate. However, sometimes our work has to be adjusted for changes in the environment or changes in our client’s plans. We ask a client before we go over the budgeted amount of time whether they would like us to or not, since there is extra fee involved. We can’t work without being paid, and have to charge for the time we spend.
I will follow up on this post with a second one on billing that will cover several additional FAQs, such as:
I hope this explanation of our fee billing is helpful. It’s important to be transparent about how fees are calculated. I don’t want to accept any engagements that are going to be financially upsetting for either the client or to us! If you have additional questions about how PR services are billed, please comment here or send me an email and I will be happy to answer them.
Lucy Siegel
When they’re trying to get your business, many PR companies will not tell you that:
1) Your company may be better off spending a very limited budget on another form of communications (such as direct marketing or online advertising) instead of hiring you. PR is not always the best solution to meet communications needs.
2) They don’t actually have media contacts in your area. Media contacts are ephemeral these days, with the high rate of layoffs in the journalism world. Chances are high that half the journalists a PR person has worked with in the recent past are no longer with the same media outlet, and/or may not be covering the same area. Agencies use media databases to find the right journalists to target, anyway, and personal contacts among journalists are overrated. Either you have something worthy of being covered (and it doesn’t matter if you have contacts because the media will respond whether they know you or not), or you don’t (and contacts are unlikely to help because the media won’t cover something with no news value whether they know you or not).
3) What you want them to do is really not what you need from them. Clients should look to PR companies who will consult with them and develop strategies, rather than just do as they’re told. After all, aren’t you paying for expertise?
4) Your expectations and goals for PR are too high. Of course you think your company and products are media- and buzz-worthy, but it’s very hard for you to be objective. It’s not at all unusual to hear a prospective client say, “We want to be in the Wall Street Journal [or on the ‘Today’ Show, or to create a record-breaking buzz about our product on Facebook]. It’s certainly possible even for startups and small companies to reach that kind of goal, but it’s not probable. Rather than managing your expectations from the outset, some PR firms will keep quiet and not tell you that kind of exposure may be very unlikely for your company. They figure they’ll educate you after you’ve signed the contract.
5) You don’t have enough budget to “move the needle.” In every situation, there’s a minimum amount of budget that’s necessary to get good PR results. Rather than telling you that you’re budget is inadequate, some PR companies will take whatever you can pay for as long as you’ll pay it, until you realize that you’re not getting the results you need. This isn’t a smart way to do business, because the client will assume that it’s the agency’s inadequacy that’s to blame, and not their own lack of resources.
6) Your company has to spend time and effort working with the PR firm to make a success of PR. For starters, the agency PR team has to be briefed thoroughly on a regular basis. It isn’t possible for an agency to do great PR for your company if your executives won’t make themselves available for interviews, or don’t get back to the agency in a timely way to answer media questions.
Lucy Siegel
