PR for Small Business Accounting Solution

[DuaneJackson]

I wish I discovered this site a month or two before I did.

We're currently 1 month in to a 3 month contract with a PR company for our product, www.kashflow.co.uk and paying a hefty sum for the service. It's basically a very easy to use book keeping system aimed at start-ups and small and home businesses.

We spoke to about 5 different PR companies and went with this firm. It's too early to judge them just yet but I'd value any info you guys can give me on what we should be paying a PR firm to deal with this for us and what we should expect in return. Do you think it's feasible to do it ourselves or should we continue to pay an external company to do it?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Greg]

Decent agencies will charge upwards of £2k per month, on a 12 monthly retained service agreement.

For SMEs that don't require a full service agency, or want to spend that much, we offer press release services, press packs, and more at www.pressdispensary.co.uk (shameless plug).

It is to early to tell but you should be getting some indication/feedback from them. Do they provide timesheets to show where your hours are allocated?

I'd be interested to hear how it goes.

[DuaneJackson]

Hi Greg,

Nothing wrong with shameless plugging! : )

Your site looks interesting, I'll certainly be taking a closer look towards the end of our current contract.

We're paying a little (but not much) less than 2k a month so assuming we end up with what we need from them we probably haven't done too badly.

No timesheets from them yet, but verbally we know from them whatthe time is spent on, They're also a very small company. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

[Webstuff]

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um...? That's yours Greg.

[Greg]

Thanks for pointing out. Thankfully, it's due to the new website going up tonight. It's a mighty big new one and loads to sort out (on the outside it will pretty much look the same though).

Normal service will resume shortly (I hope!), along with new features and services.

[10 Yetis]

Hi Greg,

Interesting post and one that will get all the spritzer brigade running over here to post (cue my arrival*!).

Really difficult to say what you should be expecting from them as an agency without really knowing how much you pay.

I want to say something about Greg's post regarding the £2k fee but I want people (and Greg) to know I have no bone with his services, in fact, what the heck, I love Greg and I think it is great that this forum now has more PR Service providers like Greg.

I don't necessarily agree with the "decent agencies will charge upwards of £2k per month" thing, and luckily I can kind of back that up. A few of the bigger companies I have worked for as a PR Manager have secured retained PR services for much less than that, but obviously the service does depend on the amount you pay.

What I would say is that I consider myself to be a decent PR company (who also do Marketing) and I charge sooooo much less than £2k p/m for a retainer it is untrue(seriously, email me and ask). :)

Also, for any retained clients you would expect a good PR agency to do the following:

1. Draft any press release you required,
2. Distribute and follow up any press release required
3. Keep you aware of any stories you may be able to comment on by monitoring forward features lists
4. Give strategic advice on areas such as media techniques, media training etc
5. Prepare Media packs/sheets
6. Arrange for you to meet with the journalists who write for the trade/national media your company operates in
7. Tell you how fabulous you are looking even when you are ill
8. Deliver a tangible set of results to prove their worth and not just the lame old, I got you x column inches.

As for the question about doing PR yourself; why not have a go. I always say to people it is not rocket science it is just using the correct words in a fancy manner and trying to influence people.

What a PR person will bring you is a good network of media contacts and the ability for you to go off and manage another part of your business safe in the knowledge that a professional is working their buns off to get you coverage and ultimately, sales.

Gosh I don't half ramble on... sorry!

* I prefer Pimms & Lemonade :)

[MinuWeb]

I have to say that I have only ever had bad experiences with PR companies, work not done to my satisfaction, exploding costs (a £600 estimate resulted in an invoice for £4500 without any communication from the company explaining that it was going to cost more, needless to say they didn't get paid the full amount.)and a few other issues.
I am sure that this was down to my poor choice in who to use, but it has left a bad taste in my mouth and am very reluctant to even consider using a PR company again.....

[daveashton]

Now I know people on here expect me to rip this apart but good PR companies are like good salespeople. Very hard to find and hard to keep focused on your ow company.

As for the value, well that depends on the formal scope of work agreed and without seeing this feel it is very unfair to comment.

One thing I would recommend however, is that you agree to sign off the work in stages as it is completed rather than having verbal agreements. This comment is aimed at companies in general, not just PR agencies.

Good luck with the project.

[DuaneJackson]

We are paying £1,500 per month. I've had the first visible bit of work delivered to me now, an advertorial, and I'm not mightily impressed to be honest. Although to be fair it is only a draft. It's based on something I wrote. I sent my original and their version to a few people whose opionion I trust and said neither were written by me so be as critical as they liked. So far noone has said that he one by the PR firm is much better. Good and bad points have been pointed out in both.


For that fee we get 3 days a month from them - not just an individual but the whole team of of 3.

We're meant to be getting a press pack sorted and first press release in the first month. I'd have to check the paperwork to remind me what else we are getting.

I think I'm getting jumpy because it's a fair whack of our marketing budget going on this and I'm not seeing any results yet (not that I should in the first month). My gut instinct is that I'm not going to be happy with what we've had for £4,500 at the end of the 3 months and I'm not usually a pessismist.

[10 Yetis]

Duane,
I am currently weeping into my Cappucino thinking, "why have I never met you". :?

All that money for advertorial (which is in my eyes, sneeky cheating PR)!

When you review your PR/Marketing services please please please can I pitch! :)

[DuaneJackson]

Hi Andy,

It's not all for advertorial.

Month 1 is:
Creating Terget Media DB
Researching Forward Features
Prep of Press Offic Materials

Month2 is
Terget MEdia DB
Forward Features
Stuff for online Press Office
Launch Press Release

Month 3 is
Forward Features & Media Tour

The advertorial is something extra. We (my partner and myself) have got ourself a few opportunities in specific mags where we are paying for advertorials. I'd drafted something and ran it by them and they offered to re-write it.

Where are you based? I'd be very much interested in talking to you face to face nearer the end of our current 3 month contract.

[daveashton]

re

Creating Target Media DB = Brad no more than 2 hours needed
Researching Forward Features = depends on the number of mags/ papers found in stage 1 but phone calls are cheap and quick so max .5 days.
Prep of Press Office Materials = the time left.

So if they are really putting 3 people on it and we round the first 2 parts to 1 day you would get:

Total hours available per month = 3 x 3 x 7.5 = 67.5 hours - 1 day used for parts 1& 2 = 60 hours left for prep of press office materials

Now that is some prep time!

PS can we bid as well!

[dragon6]

You could try adding a do it yourself application to your PR activities. Free press releases can be sent from www.prweb.com and www.pressbox.co.uk.
We operate a DIY portal where you can post press releases, articles, classified ads and business directory links.

[Jayne]

Sack them all love and do it yourself. I'll have a bash at it for that sort of money and I'm a Baker! Cannot be that hard putting out a few ads and phoning a few people. Save your money and put it to a nice holiday.

Best Wishes

Jayne

[roger white]

Hi - can I join the queue waiting for you to put your work out to tender?

Seriously, for good PR a three month contract is not the basis for a retained relationship - it should be just a simple project with defined and agreed measurable outputs although you may split the fee over three stages. A retained relationship only works for either party over a sustained period (6months minimum) - a lot of PR is back-end loaded in terms of results but not effort - some magazines have a three month lead time for example on features.

Having been on both sides of the fence, the first priority is for you to get your brief right; second is for them to be clear about what they are expected to deliver, how and when; and third is for them to make sure you have reasonable expectations of what can be achieved. If you don't have a newsworthy story it doesn't matter how good they are - they should manage your expectations and make sure they deliver more than you expect.

Having said that, £1500 p/m for a retained relationship is good value if they are good, but you are not getting the services of three people for that money - you are getting three man-days p/m. Good people are going to cost you more like £2kp/m as suggested earlier.

If you want a serious discussion about what you need and what a good agency can do for you then I guess any of us who are pitching in here would be willing to have a telephone conversation and give you a realistic assessment of what you can do and expect.

Give me a call if you want a chat,
Roger

[DuaneJackson]

Thanks for your comments Roger,

For anyone that is interested in pitching for this, please contact me at the end of September. or beginning of October. But not before

I'd like to arrange a face to face meeting with some of you that have a proven track record - ideally in the small business-to-business area.

email djackson at keyone dot co.uk

[Marina Stone]

In my opinion perhaps you are not getting value for money.

We can offer marketing and PR on a monthly retainer for not much more!

Our full monthly retainer service includes a marketing plan which includes new fresh marketing ideas and acts as a focus for both our client and us. We don't just present the plan and run, we work through the plan and carry out all the work involved.

The monthly retainer also covers graphic design, PR, Product Launches, Database management, etc. We work as part of your team as a member of staff would but with all the skills.

I know you already have a list of other professionals ready to tender...

I'll leave it with you!
Marina

[directmarketingadvice]

Hi Duane.

I'm curious about this subject, so I've got some questions.

When you decided to pay £4,500 for PR over 3 months, what were your expectations?

What was your idea of a good return for your money? Were your expectations based on units sold or column inches in particular places? (or some other measurement)

What criteria are you planning to use to decide if it's money well spent?

Also, to what extent are these advertorials going to be adverts and to what extent will they be presented as coming from the magazine?

Steve

[DuaneJackson]

Hi Steve,

To deal with your last point first. The advertorials we are arranging in-house. We are expecting the PR firm to get articles placed off the back of press-releases, not pay for advertorials.

I'm assuming the only way to assess the effectiveness of the spend and resulting PR campaign is to look at the end results after thee 3 months. This would be based on a column inches, product plugs, etc and most importanly *where* this stuff actually appears. A plug in BusinessXL is worth more than an article in Fishermans Weekly. The ultimate metric will be to see how many sign-ups we get off the back of it all.

I'm still going through a bit of a roller-coaster with our exiisting PR firm, some days I am happy-ish with them, but usually not. Currently not at all.

But because we are already 2 months and 3k in I'm not willing to pull the plug because most of the 'work' to date has been groundwork. So I'm waiting to see what happens in this final month. I'm not overly optimistic.

Another lesson learnt I guess. An expensive one, but one worth learning nonetheless.

[directmarketingadvice]

Duane

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I wouldn't have thought that accounting software would be particularly suited to PR, though I'd imagine some of the PR smart cookies on here have underground techniques to promote pretty much anything via PR.

I'd like to ask them if it's particularly hard to get a publication interested in a piece of software as a journo would presumably have to invest the time to play around with it to see how it performs.

Having said that, you've got a 60 day free trial which magazines might want to alert their readers to.

Is it possible to combine this in some way with a "reader offer" where the publication would participate in profits?

One marketing apporach you might want to consider is approaching people who sell PC related hardware (or non-competitive software). They could offer a free copy of your software (as a 6 or 12 month free trial) as a bonus to their customers.

There's a good chance the business would try it out and you'd get paid on the renewal.

Steve

[DuaneJackson]

Hi Steve,

We think this is suited to PR, particularly because it's not just 'accounting software', it's the first of it's kind that is actually designed specifically for small businesses and is easy to use (no, MYOB and Quickbooks really aren't). But then again I am biased. Without PR, how else would we go about getting exposure in the press?

Contra deals (wherby advertiser share in profits) is something we've tried to arrange but no one we have spoken to about it is particularly keen.

We do do reader offers offering discounts, but this is more so that we can track where the sign ups are coming from.

The PC related hardware is a good idea. The problem is that it's not focused enough on the small businesses and start-ups that we are trying to reach. Channels we currently are working with are The Princes Trust (becuase we have an excellent relationship tere at an appropriate level) and business support organisations as well as a few others but I don't want to give up our whole marketing plan :)

Can I also say thanks to everyone that has contribted to this thread. It's been very useful for me to get all of your perspectives on this. (even if some of it might be biased becuase you'd like the business).

[directmarketingadvice]

I'd still like to hear the PR people's answer to my general question about using PR for software: would someone from the publication have to be willing to take the time to use the software before writing about it?

For example, Duane's USP appears to be that his software is "the first that's designed for small businesses and is easy to use".

However, others have claimed the same (rightly or wrongly).

Would you expect a publication to try the software out before they were willing to say it's "easy to use"? Or would they prefix such a comment with "the company claims"?

Also, if we could use a piece of accounting software as a general example, where would you expect to be able to place such a product in the media and what sort of things would you expect to have said about it?

Would you be looking to have it reviewed? Or a story about the company?

I'm quite curious about this as I've been bumping into dedicated PR people and it's led me to think more and more about PR.

Also, what's a good book to read about PR?

Steve

[Richard Glynn]

Hi Andy,

It's not all for advertorial.

Month 1 is:
Creating Terget Media DB
Researching Forward Features
Prep of Press Offic Materials

Month2 is
Terget MEdia DB
Forward Features
Stuff for online Press Office
Launch Press Release

Month 3 is
Forward Features & Media Tour

The advertorial is something extra. We (my partner and myself) have got ourself a few opportunities in specific mags where we are paying for advertorials. I'd drafted something and ran it by them and they offered to re-write it.

Where are you based? I'd be very much interested in talking to you face to face nearer the end of our current 3 month contract.

Hi Duane,

New forum member and freelance PR consultant here.

It's early days for your new agency yet and they deserve a fair crack of the whip. But looking at your three month plan it would appear that you’re getting a lot of nicey nicey report, strategy and preparatory type stuff at the expense of bums on seats media coverage.

Some agencies use this as a way of justifying high fees without delivering tangible results which Andy at 10yetis shrewdly values. He’s right.

At first glance all your actually getting – at the sharp end - is one launch release and a media tour?? Not convinced of a tour of an office full of computers – if this is what they have in mind? And if it involves an event keep your eye on spiralling additional direct costs. You don’t want to blow your marketing budget on canapé’s and booze.

Most agencies have a comfort zone of services. Make sure they’re not giving you what they always do for clients - instead of actually giving you what you need. Just a hunch.

The Press Dispensary (and other similar pay as you go services) is definitely worth considering - especially if value is important. But this can sometimes take more of your own time because you miss out on some of the proactive service. What you put in is what you get out. (Greg can advise otherwise though?!)

Just be very careful about agencies boasting three people working on your account. They'll invariably send the director to schmooze and win your cash before delegating your work to a junior fresh out of university. ‘Three people’ is sometimes code for ‘get our low salaried agency staff doing the donkey work’. I hope it's not the case with your agency.

It's a shame that this occasionally goes on because it reflects badly on the large proportion of excellent PR advisers that are around. And it seems to me that there’s already a good selection of PR expertise right here on the forum to help you make comparisons.

And yes - I’ll be dropping you a line at the end of September too to tell you how I’d deliver at least twice as much for half the price!

[Richard Glynn]

I'd still like to hear the PR people's answer to my general question about using PR for software: would someone from the publication have to be willing to take the time to use the software before writing about it?

For example, Duane's USP appears to be that his software is "the first that's designed for small businesses and is easy to use".

However, others have claimed the same (rightly or wrongly).

Would you expect a publication to try the software out before they were willing to say it's "easy to use"? Or would they prefix such a comment with "the company claims"?

Also, if we could use a piece of accounting software as a general example, where would you expect to be able to place such a product in the media and what sort of things would you expect to have said about it?

Would you be looking to have it reviewed? Or a story about the company?

I'm quite curious about this as I've been bumping into dedicated PR people and it's led me to think more and more about PR.

Also, what's a good book to read about PR?

Steve

Hi Steve,

USP claim

To add value you’d look at slotting a statistic or two in the main copy. Claims without this backup would need to be attributed in a quote to someone from the company. This way it’s perceived as opinion as opposed to fact.

Tactics

>> Develop trial 30-day use version of the software and make it available exclusively to a key publication.

>> Consider downloads of above on website.

>> Offer a donation to a Small Business affiliated charity each time the trial is downloaded.

>> Run a media competition. ‘Win one of five copies of Acme software’. This tactic will see you exchange the value of the prize for editorial space in a magazine. Most magazines will have minimum prize values before they run a competition.

>> Offer a limited period discount offer to readers submiting a code when purchasing the software.

>> Offer a rolling discount to appropriate trade association members.

>> Yes, send copies for magazines to review along with media info to help the reviewer with his/her story.

>> Personal interest stories about the directors of the company. Even info about what they do away from the business – nude windsurfing perhaps? - can give you an angle to hang the software business message on.

>> Offer websites ‘How to’ feature in return for a URL listing.

>> Make postings on forums. Have advice pages on your website to point people to (like The Press Dispensary press release advice) to save you typing things out over and over again – and boost web visits.

Remember, you need to prioritise any tactics to deliver the business results. And dovetail with other marketing activity like direct mail, events, exhibitions, speaking opportunities, direct sales, advertising etc. to watch your sales fly.

Just like most PR people I could go on.

Good books to read:

Public relations Kit for Dummies (UK version)
PR Power - Amanda Barry

And in a bit more depth: Public Relations on the Net - Shel Holtz

[DuaneJackson]

Thanks Richard,

Would it be possible to email me before the end of this week or very early next week with your pitch as opposed to the end of the month?

We've decided to move things forward sooner rather than later. Same applies for anyone else that thinks they'd be able to offer us a good service at a reasonable price. There are a handful of PR people here who's service/attitude/personality I find intriguing and would like to explore the possibility of working with.

Unfortunately for me you all know exactly what we've be spending to date and I'd be surprised if anyone pitched at a lower figure than what we are paying presently. But with the fact that we've basically wasted a few grand to date we are having to try to nail down costs.

Please send email to djackson at keyone dot co.uk with any info on how you could work with us to raise awareness of this product in the media,

Thanks

[directmarketingadvice]

Hi Richard

Those were very interesting and educational posts. Thanks for taking the time to write them.

Steve