PR Agency Assessment Tools
I know what it's like to be the client of a public relations agency. As a senior corporate communications executive for more than a decade, I've led public relations campaigns of all sizes and budgets.
In some years, I managed major product launches for Fortune 1000 companies and spent half a million dollars or more with national public relations agencies such as Fleishman-Hillard and Burson-Marsteller. In other years, such as when I founded a technology startup, I operated on a shoestring -- doing virtually all the dirty work myself and using PR firms only for specific small projects.
Some of my relationships with public relations agencies have been highly successful; in other cases, I had to pull the plug when I realized I wasn't getting what I'd paid for.
If you are currently an agency client, what criteria should you use to assess your firm's performance? Or, as a potential public relations agency client, what criteria should you use when selecting a firm?
I've designed assessment tools to help answer these questions. Whether you are on the client side, with a PR agency, or in the news media, I welcome your input. I'm happy to expand on these based on your suggestions.
posted by Scott Baradell at
10:41 AM
1 Comments:
When my company conducted a search recently for a PR firm, we rated the seven firms we met using the following criteria:
Industry Knowledge
Energy
Creativity
Chemistry with our Team
Business Acumen
Depth of Journalist Relationships
Experience with Similar Accounts
After we had met with all the firms, I developed a matrix to show each firm's total score by each person on the review team. It helped us to identify our three finalists, and our written comments helped us remember what we had liked about firms we'd met at the very beginning of the three-month process.
The rating sheet was certainly a subjective tool, but it helped us enormously.
By
Joy Jennings, at 4/08/2005
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