What Clients Want
I’ve learned a few things in my six-year career in PR. But the biggest thing I’ve learned is what clients want. It’s a not-so-secret secret that every PR professional needs to understand or they will be doomed.
The lesson is this: What have you done for me lately?
When companies hire a PR firm, they expect results, and not just one-time results. They expect regular results. With few exceptions, that means ink. Ink by the barrel, if you will.
Essentially in PR, that’s our bottom line. We have to generate results for our clients. Most of the time, we are successful at it. But it kind of stops there.
I had a great mentor when I worked at Edelman who taught me a very important lesson about the next step. She pulled me aside one day because she received an email about a news story we had pitched and placed. The problem was, she received it from the client. She told me, “Never let that happen.”
There’s a great post on PRSA’s blog about 5 Tips on Working with Reports and Top News Stories. The last point mentioned in the post is the most striking point of all. It basically says, “Were you successful? Find the story.”
Make sure you are the one to inform the client that the story ran. Keep a record of those hits. And keep trying to get them as often as possible.
That’s what your clients want.
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to point it out. I wanted to make sure that there was a clear connection made-that this coverage came as a direct result of my efforts.