As you recall, last week we asked what you'd like us to include in future issues. We received some excellent questions. One came from Michelle Present, author of "Do it! or DIET". She asked, "How do you check out a publicist?" Actually, she gave us a name of a specific one she wanted checked out, but we won't be going that far in this newsletter...
I wish I could say that it was easy to call up a publicist rating service, type in the name, and there you would have a rating for them. As far as I know, that doesn't exist. So, finding the right publicist generally involves a bunch of footwork, but in our experience, the more you put in before you sign a contract, the happier you will end up being happier in the end.
First of all, you need to know what a publicist is and isn't. A publicist is someone who does what we talk about in this newsletter for a living. Because of that, they, like most other consultant-types, conceivably have a bank of knowledge and what's more important in this industry, established relationships with the reporters in your industry.
|
|
That last phrase is key. Ideally, you will be hiring a publicist who already has existing relationships with reporters in your industry. If they don't, you're hiring (presumably) a very well trained set of arms and legs, but in essence, they're a very high-priced set of arms and legs. So, if the publicist you're considering hiring can't spout off the names of 10 of the key reporters (names, not media, mind you) you probably ought to consider whether you should be hiring someone different.
What happens if you can't find anyone who has pre-existing relationships? That's when it gets tough. If I were you I would consider one of two things:
1) (The publicists are going to hate me for this) Do you have the interest in and ability to go out and develop those contacts within your organization. The tradeoff is that you pay less, but you lose the knowledge base of how to do things. (For a complete guide on how to do it yourself, visit
Media Relations Power )
2) (The publicists are going to hate me for this one too) I'd do some pretty hard negotiating, saying that you're unwilling to pay for them to develop the relationships, and negotiating yourself a lower fee for the first part of the contract until those relationships are in place.
It's also important for you to figure out how this publicist really works. If they're simply slapping together a press release and faxing, mailing or emailing it out to a list, you can do that yourself. But if they're doing something that adds value, they'd better be able to clearly indicate what that something is.
Many publicists claim the most valuable thing they supply as their proprietary in-house list. But remember our original point, if they don't have pre-existing relationships with reporters and editors *in your industry*, their in-house list can easily be reproduced with a list you buy yourself. (For a complete review of the different companies that provide press release distribution services, check out Secrets of Effective Press Release Distribution So be careful with that claim.
Of course, another screen is checking out their references - since you probably want fast results, I'd ask for a client that's been with them 3 months, another that's been with them for 6 months, and another at a year, plus their usual laundry list of long-time contacts. Then specifically ask those people (you do call references supplied, right?) how much media coverage this publicist has generated for them during that x months versus how much they received before.
Finally, I recommend that you not sign a long-term contract with a publicist right up front. Most can be talked into working with you on a short project basis. You'll pay more, but I suggest that you take a single project and hire the publicist just to promote that, like an event, a new product announcement, or to find a story idea within your company and promote it to the media (a ground-up project, which is a good way to determine whether you'll get proactive results from this publicist in the future..., but which is probably harder to get them to agree to do on a project basis.)
Posted July 01, 2004
More Public Relations / Publicity Comments:Public Relations and Publicity Blog
Three Reasons Why You NEED An Electronic Media Kit »
