Bad experience with PR Agency - WWYD?

[Coffeecomposed]

6 months ago we entered a 6 month contract with a PR Agency to run online and offline PR. We had meetings with a number of potential Agencies and this one felt right for us - we really liked the MD and their proposal sounded exciting while also reasonable.

Safe to say, the whole experience has been dreadful and at the end of the 6 months, all we’ve got to show of it is two articles - one in a social worker magazine (absolutely not our target audience in the slightest!) and one in the daily Mail. When I say ‘article’, our name has been mentioned and that’s literally it - no links, no images.

Throughout the 6 months we’ve gone back to the MD and communicated very clearly that we’re disappointed and she’s apologised and said that ‘it’s just the way it is with PR’ and that as a gesture of goodwill, she’ll keep us in mind if any other opportunities come up once our contract has ended.

To be honest, we’re fully prepared to just walk away and call it a bad experience but I’m interested in what you would do in this position? We won’t get money back - the contract is written in such a way that nothing is guaranteed but I feel like I should do something to warn others.

 

[simon field]

Write a review maybe?

Get it off your chest & move on after that.

 

[Coffeecomposed]

Write a review maybe?

Yep. I suspect (!) the majority of their reviews are fake.

 

[Fagin2021]

This is what I'd do - it's not necessarily what anyone else would do:

1. Write (not email) to the MD formally. Summarise why they got the business in the first place and refer to any written or verbal promises they made. Say what they have achieved (as you've done in your OP) and express your disappointment at the waste of time and money. Ask what they propose to do to rectify the situation. (Don't make proposals of your own at this stage). Say you expect a response within 2 weeks.
2. Send the letter by Royal Mail Special Delivery.
3. When they reply saying 'that's just PR' or 'they'll keep you in mind' give it a couple of days and write again.
4. Say that their response is unsatisfactory and you expected better. Draft a short review briefly outlining the facts (unemotionally).
5. Send them the draft review -again by Special Delivery. Tell them that you intend to publish it as widely as possible. (Don't say unless you do XXX - it smacks of blackmail). Ask them if they wish to correct any factual errors before you submit your reviews.
6. Ask them to furnish you with the names of existing clients so you can find out whether their underperformance is a common problem. (They won't give you them of course).

See what happens!

 

[Coffeecomposed]

This is what I'd do - it's not necessarily what anyone else would do:

This is so helpful!!
I think it would be enough to rock their boat and ‘hopefully’ make them think in the future. I think the idea of asking them to fact check the review is amazing!
Thank you so much for the ideas.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Personally I'd move on and be more thorough in future engagements

 

[cjd]

Depends how much work you want to do, how much retribution you feel you need and whether you think it will achieve anything anyway. Personally I think it's a lost cause and you're best spending your energy elsewhere. If there's any payments outstanding I suggest you don't 'instand' them. But I bet it was in advance?

Your problem was persisting for 6 months with no return but paying them anyway.

You learn these things as you go.

 

[The Byre]

I used to run a news agency. We avoided taking feeds from PR agencies.

 

[Fagin2021]

Depends how much work you want to do, how much retribution you feel you need and whether you think it will achieve anything anyway. Personally I think it's a lost cause and you're best spending your energy elsewhere. If there's any payments outstanding I suggest you don't 'instand' them. But I bet it was in advance?

Your problem was persisting for 6 months with no return but paying them anyway.

You learn these things as you go.

That's a perfectly valid viewpoint but the idea is not retribution. The object is to get them to calculate the potential cost of losing business through bad reviews against the actual cost of compensating the client through additional work or refund.

The equation changes from you saying 'write it off and move on' to them saying 'write it off and move on'

I have no idea how much @Coffeecomposed paid the PR agency for 6 months but I'm sure the time and effort involved in the approach I outlined is insignificant by comparison. We're talking a couple of letters - not a court case.

I've never been involved in PR but I'd imagine the reputation of a PR agency is a major concern.

 

[AllUpHere]

PR is a funny thing. It's perfectly possible that someone could have been doing a decent job but not got much in the way of results in 6 months. It's also perfectly possible they are bloody useless.

I don't use PR professionals for any of my clients because actually I get a much more positive response doing it myself. As @The Byre said, a lot of outlets aren't big fans of stuff from PR professionals, unless they are known to them.

 

[MBE2017]

We won’t get money back - the contract is written in such a way that nothing is guaranteed but I feel like I should do something to warn others.

Write a review if you wish, but your real answer is in your statement above, in future do not fall for promises, nail down more measurable results in the contract.

 

[The Byre]

Look, it's like this - I ran a media company and our stock-in-trade was NEWS. BUSINESS NEWS to be specific.

PR agencies (or in-house PR staff) get hired and are expected to magically create copy that people like me would bring in and get published. That means they are VERY likely to generate poor quality or even zero quality articles that just get thrown into the bin.

Back in the day in the 90s we got 60 US cents per work printed, so a day's work from a journalist was worth about $1,200 revenue. We were hungry for trade news of all kinds and types. Company acquisitions, new products, special projects, interviews with CEOs and regular market studies, such as features on the Polish construction market or German broadcasting, or just a big feature on a trade fair somewhere.

The important thing is that there has to be a REASON to write about a business. Don't ever forget that the poor Schmo writing the article has to sell that article to an editor! Someone's coffee shop or car repair shop being still in existence is about as unsaleable a news item as it is possible to imagine!

I always realised that PR agencies had a very horrible job - and often only got paid if we wrote about their clients. At least in-house PR people were on a monthly wage and could just about eat. Above these poor saps were the sales managers who would INSIST that they got press coverage - somehow! What these people never did was to throw them a bone and actually do something that was newsworthy!

Of course, when they did do anything newsworthy, they either didn't want anyone to know about it (record losses and debt or maybe an M&A) or they were too stupid to realise that their new gizmo was revolutionary.

I often had to deal with some hack coming back from a visit to some company or trade fair and produce reams of guff and hidden in all that was an en passant mention of something really, really interesting.

"Forget all that company fluff stuff and their poxy new pick-n-place machine, give me 2,000 words on that mirror-chip! I need pictures, diagrams, interviews, the lot!"

It's a good rule-of-thumb to do something newsworthy once a year or once every two years. Some activities are more interesting than others. Films are always interesting and trucking seldom is - but if you are running a trucking company and you want some local news coverage, start a drivers' training scheme and tell the local rag and the local TV and radio outlets what you are up to.

Trucking is boring, right? How about making your trucks comfortable and with a loo, a shower, a TV and a cooker to attract women drivers? Then tell the world! If you do that, I bet C4 and the local ITV station will run a feature! Even the dailies will pick it up!

Create a proper press release, send it on paper by mail and put high-res pics and text online so that they can copy them over. If you can, put some 4K video footage online where they can copy it.

You don't need a PR agency - you need to do something newsworthy and then tell someone about it!

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Trucking is boring, right?

In my long career as a photographer I did my fair share of PR shoots. On 2 occasions my jobs included trucking. One was loading a spaghetti machine onto a truck. As you say it had to be news shipping a pasta machine to Italy. Another notable one was a convoy of very wide loads delivering the world's biggest cheese making machine to Davidstow.

At one time I had a photo printing machine especially for PR handout pix. Runs over 500 10x8s were common.

 

[Coffeecomposed]

PR is a funny thing. It's perfectly possible that someone could have been doing a decent job but not got much in the way of results in 6 months. It's also perfectly possible they are bloody useless.

I don't use PR professionals for any of my clients because actually I get a much more positive response doing it myself. As @The Byre said, a lot of outlets aren't big fans of stuff from PR professionals, unless they are known to them.

I do appreciate that this can be the case, but in this situation I don’t feel like they even tried. I think you’re right in doing it yourself where possible - the best PR we had years ago (This Morning ITV) was a total in-house whim, I think the researchers do like to speak to founder directly.

 

[Coffeecomposed]

PR agencies (or in-house PR staff) get hired and are expected to magically create copy that people like me would bring in and get published. That means they are VERY likely to generate poor quality or even zero quality articles that just get thrown into the bin.

They are not expected to ‘magically create copy’ - they are expected to deliver on their proposal. I understand what you’re saying and agree to a degree, but our expectations from the agency were based on their pitch - they set the bar.

 

[MBE2017]

They are not expected to ‘magically create copy’ - they are expected to deliver on their proposal. I understand what you’re saying and agree to a degree, but our expectations from the agency were based on their pitch - they set the bar.

Despite your first post, you seem unable to walk away. You have vented your frustration, but even though you will not like the answer, you have been took in by vague promises. Learn from it and don’t fall for it again.

Try not to cry over spilt milk might be an apt saying.

 

[The Byre]

I understand what you’re saying and agree to a degree, but our expectations from the agency were based on their pitch - they set the bar.

The very task of a PR agency (as opposed to a marketing agency) is a pretty desperate one! They have to sell something that is not news to a reporter as being news, hoping that he/she can sell that non-news to an editor.

PR agencies and even PR staff are often failed reporters or some poor idiots who did media studies at the Wysuckie College for the Totally Dumb and couldn't get a job anywhere.

It sounds as if they promised you something, knowing full well that nothing of the sort could ever happen. Even if a PR person manages to get some vapid fluff-stuff past a reporter, that then lands on a section editor's desk and even if that person is daft enough to pass that article, the editor will probably reject it. Then the signed-off pages go to the publisher and that person may very easily look at it and reject that page and a new article has to go in.

There are PR people who know what they are doing and can develop strategies that get your profile out there and the first thing they will do is find a hook that will get you noticed. e.g. a star visits your business, thereby tieing two clients together into one story.

New business opens - not a story.
New business opened by local MP - two column inches. No TV or radio.
New business opened by rock star - one inside page story. May get short piece on local radio.
Rock star eats a live hamster at new business - front page and even news on TV.

 

[cjd]

New business opens - not a story.
New business opened by local MP - two column inches. No TV or radio.
New business opened by rock star - one inside page story. May get short piece on local radio.
Rock star eats a live hamster at new business - front page and even news on TV.

And then you find out that all publicity is not good publicity because nobody cares what your product is, all they care about is the hamster.

You need PR about your company's products and services. And that is rare.

It should really come as no surprise that a PR company spun their pitch.

 

[NickGrogan]

one in the daily Mail. When I say ‘article’, our name has been mentioned and that’s literally it - no links, no images.

Why would the daily mail, or any other "news" papers include a link in the article? I don't normally see links in articles, even for ftse100 companies.

Perhaps your expectations are a bit off?

 

[Fagin2021]

The oldies on here might recall the classic Hugh Laurie comment....

"No such thing as bad publicity? Try telling that to Frank Bough."

 

[Fagin2021]

Reading the threads above it seems to me there is some confusion between Public Relations and Public Awareness and thus possible confusion over the role of a PR agency.

Public Awareness is closer to advertising ie. raising awareness of a product or service.

Public Relations is more about shaping image. It might be about a product (eg. Skoda cars) or about a company (eg. BP) but it's essentially about creating a favourable image or reversing a poor one.

Getting links, mentions, or leads is a possible by-product of PR but not the primary objective so almost by definition, it's difficult to measure success but not impossible, especially if PR is focused on a niche audience (eg. before and after surveys).

Because measurement might be difficult it can be tempting to concentrate on activities rather than outcomes. That's what many so-called SEO companies do.

 

[Coffeecomposed]

There are PR people who know what they are doing and can develop strategies that get your profile out there and the first thing they will do is find a hook that will get you noticed. e.g. a star visits your business, thereby tieing two clients together into one story.

100% this! This is what made them stand out in the first place as their pitch said very similar to this post - colabs with experts, industry insight infographics, comments on relevant news issues surrounding our niche. Turns out that talking about this stuff is way easier than actually producing it…

Thanks for this reply, it makes a lot of sense

 

[fisicx]

What is you do that is newsworthy? What it is that’s going to interest joe public?

 

[The Byre]

Turns out that talking about this stuff is way easier than actually producing it…

Ask to talk to other clients - an honest PR agency will be only too happy to give you references!

But PR is impossible to measure, so I would prefer to concentrate on marketing. PR can assist in raising general awareness, but I would concentrate on direct marketing that can be measured.

 

[ethical PR]

PR is not impossible to measure it is lazy PR people and agencies that say this.

@Coffeecomposed All PR should link into achieving SMART objectives and can be measured and evaluated against those objectives. In PR, if you can't measure it then you shouldn't be doing it.

I am sorry you had a bad experience with your agency. When you signed on to work with them did you and the agency not agree targets and outputs for activity and agree what success would look like in terms of your objectives.

What did it say in your contact with the agency about what would happen if either party was unhappy with the arrangement?

National media won't normally provide links to client websites by the way , unless it's say for features they are running on restaurants, holidays or Christmas gift guides.

Can you outline what the agency agree to deliver in terms of outputs, coverage, influencers signed up, celebrity endorsements etc that hasn't been delivered?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

I may have missed it but have you asked for a schedule of the work they've carried out on your behalf?

 

[makeusvisible]

6 months ago we entered a 6 month contract with a PR Agency to run online and offline PR. We had meetings with a number of potential Agencies and this one felt right for us - we really liked the MD and their proposal sounded exciting while also reasonable.

Safe to say, the whole experience has been dreadful and at the end of the 6 months, all we’ve got to show of it is two articles - one in a social worker magazine (absolutely not our target audience in the slightest!) and one in the daily Mail. When I say ‘article’, our name has been mentioned and that’s literally it - no links, no images.

Throughout the 6 months we’ve gone back to the MD and communicated very clearly that we’re disappointed and she’s apologised and said that ‘it’s just the way it is with PR’ and that as a gesture of goodwill, she’ll keep us in mind if any other opportunities come up once our contract has ended.

To be honest, we’re fully prepared to just walk away and call it a bad experience but I’m interested in what you would do in this position? We won’t get money back - the contract is written in such a way that nothing is guaranteed but I feel like I should do something to warn others.

I don't want to sound like devil's advocate, as clearly I don't know enough about the project to comment either way.

However, the key question is what was the remit of the PR agency? There are several ways of working, for example;

They may well be charging you on an hourly basis, based on the number of hours according to your budget. For example, if your budget was £1,000 per month, and their rate is £80 p/h you would have expected them to undertake 12.5 hours work for you each month. Obviously, their experience and expertise would allow them to properly structure their campaign so that the total hours are mapped out amongst their team members to maximise potential. The risk from this type of campaign is with the client, as sometimes things work, sometimes they don't, even if they have spent the allocated hours.

The alternative approach may be that you have paid them based on some target metrics. For example, the agreed deliverable might have been exposure to a certain audience. This is a more unusual pricing mechanism and would generally be more expensive, as there are risks from the agency side that time involvement may become more stretched if the deliverables are proving difficult to achieve.

With either approach, you would expect some accountability as to where your budget has gone, and/or where the time has been spent. Did they for example give you some kind of report as to what they were doing each month?

 

[The Byre]

PR is not impossible to measure it is lazy PR people and agencies that say this.

Well, I've never seen it being measured - ever!

Here's a real-world example that happened to us several times -

There are several gatekeepers to coverage. Let's start with a simple trade or hobby magazine. You need to get your new product reviewed, so you get the marketing manager to work the phones. He/she gets their UK PR flunky to pitch to the technical reviews editor who then calls up the right person to do the review.

An example of this new camera/microphone/knitting machine is sent to that person. That person tris the product and tells you it's crap on a stick. "I can't review it because it just does not work - and I know that the mag does not want to feature products that are to be avoided!"

So the reviewer writes a polite email to the marketing manager, pointing out the flaws and asking for a new product when obvious improvements are made.

On one occasion, a microphone manufacturer sent a stand for their 5.1 surround systems to EVERY pro-audio and hobby audio mag out there (and there are dozens!) EVERY single one of them declined to review the thing! And yes, we refused as well!

In television, some PR walla phones up the station and hopes to get a camera crew out to some ghastly event. If the event is interesting (i.e. not ghastly, but actually newsworthy!) the section editor will sign off a crew to go out and do a piece on it. The piece has to stand up against other newsworthy events. It could still get binned, in favour of some real news!

I remember sitting in a cafe with a film stunts director and freelance cameraman when some revolting creature came rushing in, asking for me by name. He had phoned up a TV station who gave him our number and my office told him where I was as he pretended to be Sky News. It became painfully obvious who and what he really was, when I asked who his commissioning editor was!

"The drummer XXX from the band XXX is playing in a hall and he's drumming up a storm!" He kept repeating the words 'drumming up a storm' in Estuary English several times!

The stunts director looked at him steadily and spoke a sentence I shall never forget. "You know, I moved up here to get away from c*nts like you!"

 

[fisicx]

In other words, it’s quite possible @Coffeecomposed doesn’t have anything a PR wallah can promote with any success.

 

[makeusvisible]

In other words, it’s quite possible @Coffeecomposed doesn’t have anything a PR wallah can promote with any success.

That could be the case. Although, you would expect any marketing business worth their salt should point this out before taking the clients money and banging on with a campaign that has no hope of success.

 

[fisicx]

That could be the case. Although, you would expect any marketing business worth their salt should point this out before taking the clients money and banging on with a campaign that has no hope of success.

True. But when you consider the posts made by @Coffeecomposed its suggests this isn’t a marketing business worth their salt. Looks like they got paid and went down the pub.

 

[BustersDogs]

My local paper kept pestering me for a funny/happy/idk story about dogs. I didn't have one. So my dog married a clients dog, and we got a two page spread.

People kept phoning me after that to 'put it on the wire' which I okayed, but that hadn't been why I did it. The answer they came back with was no one is interested in dog weddings anymore unless you spend 10s of 1000s on it.

But the local publicity and photos were nice.

 

[The Byre]

So my dog married a clients dog, and we got a two page spread.

That is how it's done!

Stories like that come straight from the Max Clifford/PT Barnum playbook. It's a complete bo-locks story - rubbish from top to bottom and from side to side.

But it works!

 

[ethical PR]

Well, I've never seen it being measured - ever!

Here's a real-world example that happened to us several times -

There are several gatekeepers to coverage. Let's start with a simple trade or hobby magazine. You need to get your new product reviewed, so you get the marketing manager to work the phones. He/she gets their UK PR flunky to pitch to the technical reviews editor who then calls up the right person to do the review.

An example of this new camera/microphone/knitting machine is sent to that person. That person tris the product and tells you it's crap on a stick. "I can't review it because it just does not work - and I know that the mag does not want to feature products that are to be avoided!"

So the reviewer writes a polite email to the marketing manager, pointing out the flaws and asking for a new product when obvious improvements are made.

On one occasion, a microphone manufacturer sent a stand for their 5.1 surround systems to EVERY pro-audio and hobby audio mag out there (and there are dozens!) EVERY single one of them declined to review the thing! And yes, we refused as well!

In television, some PR walla phones up the station and hopes to get a camera crew out to some ghastly event. If the event is interesting (i.e. not ghastly, but actually newsworthy!) the section editor will sign off a crew to go out and do a piece on it. The piece has to stand up against other newsworthy events. It could still get binned, in favour of some real news!

I remember sitting in a cafe with a film stunts director and freelance cameraman when some revolting creature came rushing in, asking for me by name. He had phoned up a TV station who gave him our number and my office told him where I was as he pretended to be Sky News. It became painfully obvious who and what he really was, when I asked who his commissioning editor was!

"The drummer XXX from the band XXX is playing in a hall and he's drumming up a storm!" He kept repeating the words 'drumming up a storm' in Estuary English several times!

The stunts director looked at him steadily and spoke a sentence I shall never forget. "You know, I moved up here to get away from c*nts like you!"

I absolutely understand the difficulties of securing media coverage; I've headed up PR agencies and managed PR for national and international organisations for 20 plus years.

Yes we can't guarantee media coverage as we still have a free press in this country; so you always have to factor in something may not run and so have to manage client expectations.

Securing media coverage is only a part of what PR people do . We organise events, get celebrities on board, run social media and digital marketing campaigns, secure speaking opportunities, help clients win awards, develop branding, write copy, do stakeholder engagement and crisis management .

All of this activity can be measured .

 

[The Byre]

Securing media coverage is only a part of what PR people do. We organise events, get celebrities on board, run social media and digital marketing campaigns, secure speaking opportunities, help clients win awards, develop branding, write copy, do stakeholder engagement and crisis management.

THIS!

Unfortunately, novice clients just expect media coverage and hope that an article in the local rag or a piece in a news broadcast will magically generate sales! In my agency days, we were often asked to do PR work and bitter experience taught me to point them at someone who covers all those things you mention - and that can all be measured and quantified.

Events and speaking engagements can both be extremely effective if the client takes a long view and realises that they have to be on their hind legs at conferences and seminars and taking press goofs around their R&D and manufacturing over a period of months and years to raise public awareness of their brand.

For example, the most successful manufacturer of microphones has to be Sennheiser. From about 1950, Professor Fritz Sennheiser always was to be found manning his own trade fair stands and even up to about 2000, one could not attend a technical trade fair without seeing him at his stands and he spoke at all events and technical seminars relevant to audio. Today his son Andreas does the same.

One of the most interesting days I spent attending a series of lectures organised by Intel on the philosophy of innovation - I learned that it takes them eight years to develop a new CPU and teams start on a chip every year. That event did not generate much copy, but it was excellent PR as all those tech journalists were now fans of the way Intel innovated.

 

[BrandLogoHere]

Personally, I would move on. It's not worth the headache at this point, you've got bigger fish to fry.

Finding the right PR firm and learning how to manage them can be an expensive process.

Unfortunately, but for good reason, press coverage is never guaranteed by PR firms, and that's usually made clear from the outset. Maybe your product didn't click with reporters. Maybe your imagery wasn't good enough.

More likely they were a bit lazy and you didn't scream down the phone at them every week. Every PR worth their salt can call in favours and get coverage when things get desperate. But they'll only do that for clients who won't stop harassing them. Unfortunate, but that's what I've seen.

If the strategy included events, applying for awards and arranging influencer partnerships and they didn't try do that, then that's awful, but you should have been on them during those 6 months. I'm not saying you should have to be on them, but it's the reality of this type of relationship.

If the strategy didn't include those types of things, make sure it does next time. Those are tangible goals that they can be held accountable for. And keep on top of them constantly because, if you don't, they'll prioritise the clients that do.

 

[ethical PR]

@BrandLogoHere

"More likely they were a bit lazy and you didn't scream down the phone at them every week. Every PR worth their salt can call in favours and get coverage when things get desperate. But they'll only do that for clients who won't stop harassing them. Unfortunate, but that's what I've seen."

what a load of twaddle

We have a free press in this country no PR can 'call in favours' and get you on the front page of the Mail/Times/on BBC Breakfast

Which PR agencies have you worked with that work in this way?

 

[The Byre]

More likely they were a bit lazy and you didn't scream down the phone at them every week. Every PR worth their salt can call in favours and get coverage when things get desperate. But they'll only do that for clients who won't stop harassing them.

I can think of other descriptors more colourful than twaddle for that sentiment!

As for calling in favours and getting coverage - how? That coverage has to be signed off by the publisher and the editor and in a large daily or TV show, the section editor - any one of whom can put a dirty big question mark against an article or on-air piece, or even just remove it.

And you can't buy your way onto the pages of a paper or onto a broadcaster's airtime (other than by buying advertising). Those publications and those programmes that allowed that to happen within the editorial content soon go out of business - the readers/viewers notice it immediately and go elsewhere!

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Bit late to the party here, but I think we've only got one side of the story. What agreement did you actually make with them? Were there any measurables/specific targets? How much time were you actually paying them for? And did you feed them with anything for them to actually "PR" or just expect magic to happen?

 

[ethical PR]

Bit late to the party here, but I think we've only got one side of the story. What agreement did you actually make with them? Were there any measurables/specific targets? How much time were you actually paying them for? And did you feed them with anything for them to actually "PR" or just expect magic to happen?

I asked this too but no reply from the OP