Hiring a PR Media company involves some risk because there is no guarantee of a return on investment. This is one of the reasons many event venues opt to adopt a “Do it Yourself” public relations strategy. However, there are numerous benefits of working with a PR firm.
Most event venue professionals do not have time to work with the media, write guest posts, or pitch press releases. For them, hiring a PR firm can be a welcome relief. The following tips can help you select a PR media company appropriate for your event venue.
Goals and Objectives
When selecting a PR firm, an event hall trusts can tell you it is important to state one’s expectations and objectives clearly. This helps the PR firm more accurately outline the scope of work, set targets, and generally develop a sustainable, achievable, and results-oriented plan.
Success Stories
When hiring a PR firm, the main objective is to make one’s campaign effective. The ideal PR firm should represent one’s venue in a manner that suits their style and character. During the initial process, the current and past clients who have held events at the venue are usually reviewed. A proven PR company should be able to show examples of their previous successful campaigns for their clients and develop a strategy for new clients.
Recommendations
In any practice or industry, reputation is an important consideration when choosing a new service provider. The purpose of looking into a firm’s reputation is to ensure one hires a firm with extensive experience dealing with clients who host events like wedding receptions. The same way there are different types of events, the PR industry also has specialties. One of the reliable ways of finding a good PR firm is through recommendations from personal or business contacts. In addition, consider the following:
- A successful PR agency should have a strong online presence; therefore, check whether the firm is featured on social sites or publications.
- Online trade publications like Public Relations Society of America have directories listing reputable PR firms.
- We advise people to beware of firms that set up fancy websites and post false testimonials to trick potential clients into hiring them.
Payment Options
PR professionals will charge for different tasks that make one’s campaign successful. For example, a press release may require one person to draft, another to proofread, another to translate, and another to disseminate the information to the media. Furthermore, there will be people who follow up, monitor, track, and analyze the impact of the press release. Some complicated services such as communications protocol, crisis communications, and stakeholder mapping require advanced senior resources.
Hourly charges can be expensive and one’s campaign is usually limited by the costs accumulated within a short time span. A retainer is preferable since it helps you focus on achieving certain goals within an extended period of time.
Additional PR Tools
Apart from PR services such as producing press releases or providing guest posts on popular blog sites, inquire about the range of PR tools they use during marketing campaigns.
- Does the firm provide info graphic or video services?
- Social media support
- Do they have contacts with traditional media such as radio, TV, newspaper, and magazines?
These additional tools are valuable in the overall success of an organization’s social and SEO standing.