Public Relations - How quickly can we be in the news?

This is a common refrain among both prospects and clients, when you try signing them, or the moment, just weeks after you get them on board to handle PR – how soon can we see us in the front page or the business page? That’s a question the client asks the PR agency, just days after you commence the formal engagement.

In a sense, most PR professionals fall prey or give in to the pressure that is built in the question, almost like if you can’t get a client media visibility quickly, and then you are not a very competent professional. There’s always a hypothetical someone who said he could get the coverage in a weeks’ time of the sign up, and that too in the form of a lead story. 

Every client wants to make to the front page!

 

This builds a kind of latest pressure, and a craving to get the sign on done – leading the agency or the PR person to resort to falsehoods, and wrong promises on how quickly the coverage will come – some cases, we have seen promises of even just a few days or one week!

Reality in PR and the media relations front is this – there is no way an agency, how big or small, how well known or otherwise can command coverage over a pliant media. This is next to impossible, and if at all someone keeps this as a pitch point or USP, you may well consider that the agency is lying through the teeth. The only objective here will be to get you on board, and walk away for now; later on come up with some template excuses as to why it did not happen.

Media coverage is a process, and never a one off event, where someone mails a press note or press release, and presto, it is taken out by the media who are just starved of information. Once the agency or person gets a client on board, and then the first few days or sometimes even weeks passes by in getting a good understanding, and then identifying the stories that can be told. It is only after these initial warm-ups, that the actual PR kickoff starts. Any coverage or media visibility whatsoever will occur days or weeks after the kickoff, with the aid or an irresistible PR pitch, and smart follow ups.

In the absence of all this, if there is someone who promises you quick media results, it is so evident that he or she is pulling a fast one, and using the client enthusiasm, to make a gain on the basis of a false promise.

The best answer to a question on how swiftly the client can be seen in the media is – we will do our best to make the appropriate and best pitches as quickly, and then follow up with the journalist. Lets see how quick it can be, and yes, if it is soon, then may be luck is smiling on us besides the efforts. This is the best reply.

Promising anything to the contrary, by portraying that the agency or you hold in a lot of media clout is the worst mistake to make in PR. Besides ruining your reputation as a sane and well planned media professional, this will also ensure total and avoidable client dissonance.