Clearly Communicating the Role of PR

One of the downsides in working in a profession like public relations is it that many either don't understand what the heck it is or what role it has in a company's overall marketing plan. You can't blame people about the former: fact is, the vast majority of American professionals will never be in a position to retain a PR professional. However, when it comes to the latter, it's the job of practitioners themselves to embark on an ambitious education campaign.

I've often written, both on my blog and in professional forums, that one of PR's biggest problems is self-created. By that I mean expectations for what PR can do for a company are often too high, and the reason for that has to do with the fact that many practitioners and firms oversell in their efforts to get the business. Without naming any names, I can tell you that I've been on many a sales presentations at other firms where the lead executive expressed abundant confidence in being able to deliver what a prospective client wanted.

You might be saying "what's wrong with that? It's just good salesmanship, right?" Well, it is good salesmanship, but as we all know, getting the account is only half the battle. Once it's won, you have to keep a company a client by giving them the service and results they expect. This is complicated by the fact that most PR firms do a poor job of explaining to clients that it's not necessarily reasonable to expect a constant stream of hits, but just because you don't have them doesn't mean your program isn't working.

Once PR hits are delivered, savvy clients will package them and make them part of marketing material and/or new business presentations. They won't just wait for a new article to hit an outlet covering a specific geographic market or industry segment they want to target. Following this approach not only makes the best business sense, but it also maximizes the value of one's PR program and the money spent on it. The latter is part of a comprehensive marketing program, but unfortunately many companies see PR as being the only part of their marketing program that is held to high expectations.

These expectations, which I know are unreasonable in many cases, are part of why PR has a poor client retention rate when compared to professional service providers. That retention rate really hasn't changed much in the past few years, yet unfortunately neither has the way PR practitioners explain what PR can and can't do to both prospective and current clients. If we as practitioners want to solve the retention problem, it's to our advantage to address the issue of reasonable expectations.

I can honestly say I do my part on that front and I'm encouraging any PR practitioners who may read this, regardless of who they work for, to do theirs as well.