Oftentimes, when I speak with a potential client on the PR side, there’s a good chance the construction or design firm on the other end of the phone is anxious to create earned media opportunities in a very short time frame. I can tell you from experience, agreeing to take on such initiatives typically results in disappointment on the client side and a missed opportunity for the agency. Allow me to explain.
In life, whether you are talking to your mechanic or a lawyer, there’s a tendency to press for information as to how long something will take. The motivation here is simple: the less time it takes, the less it will cost. But in those same situations, you wouldn’t press your mechanic to rush a job that kept your car in safe running condition, nor would you ask an attorney to not prepare for opening statements in exchange for taking 30 minutes off your bill. Why, then, would you ask your PR consultant to attempt to produce results with an insufficient timeline?
When you decide that you want to bolster your brand’s visibility in local and trade media outlets, this is a huge first step. Your company has achieved some level of success that enables it to even consider such an investment, which is commendable. But in order to build relationships with targeted media and cultivate the stories and data that makes your company stand out, it takes time, even for a PR consultant who actively works with the same trade journalist you want to cover your company and projects. There’s a trust factor involved, and as someone who once wore the journalist hat early in his career, most seasoned writers and editors want to feel out a potential source before working with them,
That’s why I tend to not take engagements with potential clients who want to only work on a short timeline and also resist investing time in meetings with their firm’s principals to identify key differentiators, which are the very details that inform successful media pitches. There’s a time investment no matter what, so focus on using that time wisely rather than trying to save an hour here and there.
A PR consultant who understands the construction, design, and real estate industries will be able to maximize your investment in a media program by not having a huge learning curve to get up to speed. But the investment has to happen - one way or another - to make an A/E/C PR program work to its full potential.
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