A good tech public relations agency can help your business promote itself, establish itself as an expert, and ultimately win more business. But if you want to see all these benefits and more, you need to choose the “best fit” tech public relations agency.
What factors should you consider in your decision and how do you find the best fit?
Consider Your Strategic Objectives
First, you should take a moment to consider your strategic objectives. If you don’t have much PR experience, or if you feel a bit lost when it comes to PR and marketing in general, don’t worry. You don’t need to have all the answers; after all, much of the reason you hire a tech PR firm is to help you clarify your goals and establish an overarching strategy.
Still, it’s a good idea to sort out what, specifically, you’re trying to accomplish. This way, you’ll be in a much better position to find a good fit for your aims and determine whether a specific PR agency will be able to help you accomplish them.
Assess Your Current PR Efforts
Next, assess your current PR efforts, if you have any. Chances are, you’ve done at least a little bit of upfront work in polishing your brand, getting active on social media, and generally managing your online reputation. What have you experienced so far? Have there been certain strategies that have paid off for your brand? Are there certain strategies that completely fell flat? How does this change the way you view PR, and what would an ideal agency do to help you navigate these waters?
Set a Budget
PR agencies come in all shapes and sizes, so it’s difficult to ballpark the cost you should expect to pay. You can find agencies with services starting at just a few hundred dollars every month, as well as agencies that charge millions of dollars for comprehensive campaigns at scale. Most tech businesses are somewhere in the middle in terms of needs. Take a moment to analyze your finances and determine how much you can afford to spend on PR.
Look at Your Competitors
It may be helpful to briefly study your competitors and the PR strategies they use to support their own businesses. Which channels are they using? How are they supporting their brands? Do you think it’s worth mimicking these strategies, or should you attempt something totally novel?
Start With Services and Capabilities
When you start reviewing actual PR agencies, look at services and capabilities first. Some organizations describe themselves as PR agencies, but they only specialize in one channel or one type of service. Others offer a little bit of everything, attempting to be comprehensive purveyors of PR services. Depending on your needs, you may want to work with a specialist or a generalist who can do a bit of everything.
Analyze Expertise
Next, analyze areas of expertise. Does this PR agency specialize in working with tech companies like yours? Does it have experience working with startups with plans to scale? Is it a general PR agency that serves a wide range of different businesses? Or does it typically work with businesses unlike yours? As you might imagine, the closer this agency is to your industry, the better your chances of success will be.
Review Past Results
Key performance indicators (KPIs) can tell you, objectively, how this PR agency has performed for brands like yours in the past. Has this organization been able to increase brand visibility, organic traffic, social media followers, and other objective metrics for past clients? Hopefully, your PR agency will have ample case studies to show you.
Evaluate Reputation
Similarly, you should spend some time evaluating this company’s reputation. What do past clients have to say about this organization? What do other PR firms have to say about it? Has this agency won any awards or received acclaim and recognition for its past actions?
Scope Out the Team
Who are the leaders on this PR agency’s team? Who’s in charge of the organization overall? Who are the top thinkers behind the agency’s most successful strategies? Who will you be working with directly?
Look at credentials, past experience, time with the company, and overall philosophy for each of these critical team members. The stronger the team, the stronger the agency. You’ll also want to find out whether the work is done in-house or contracted out.
Narrow Down the List
As you start researching more PR agencies, you can begin narrowing down the list. At this point, it shouldn’t be hard to eliminate some candidates based on range of capabilities, experience, past results, or even price.
Talk (and Listen)
Once your list has sufficiently narrowed, you can begin having conversations with point people at each of those agencies. Listen to what they have to say, ask lots of questions, and describe what you’re looking for. This is a great opportunity to evaluate the communicative potential of each agency and simultaneously learn more about what your PR strategy might look like in the near future.
With these strategies, you should feel much more confident about your PR agency selection. The majority of PR agencies you can find with introductory online research should have the capabilities to promote your tech company. Still, if you want your investment to pay off, you need to find the best overall candidate. These protocols will help you do it.
The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.
