We once went to visit a new prospect in east London. It was a big international business and they filled us in on the background as they showed us round their premises.
We wound up in their boardroom, where they picked up the latest edition of their key trade magazine and put it in the middle of the table. “See that cover?” they said. “That’s our main competitor right there. That’s what we want. We want to be on that cover. Can you do it?”
We looked at one another. “Well, yes, we probably can,” we said. “But are you sure that’s what you want?”
Huh?
They didn’t understand: of course that was what they wanted. But we reminded them that over the last hour they’d told us they had a target market of around 100 key prospects, all of whom they could name – even those who weren’t customers. What’s more, around 75% of those people were within a 50-mile radius of the boardroom in which we were sitting.
“You know who these people are and where they are,” we said. “Why don’t you invite them all here instead? Run a few open days, show them round, give them lunch, tell them what you can do for them? That was an impressive tour you just gave us. Yes, that front-cover coverage would be great too, but you know these people’s names. You’ve got a more immediate opportunity. Why not grab it?”
The problem here was perspective. Sometimes clients don’t want what’s right – they want what feels right. PR that results in them quietly signing up five new major accounts and growing their revenue by 20% isn’t as visible as that top news story. They hired a PR company to increase their company’s prestige and by golly, it worked. Look at that front page! Everyone will see it: their competitors, their peers, their bosses. They think of these people first and sadly their target market second.
Being in PR is partly about being brave enough to burst this bubble, just as we did that day in east London. Clients need to be advised about the best routes to success and not just about the shiniest. They need to be persuaded to remove the corporate internal acronyms they inserted into the simply worded materials you drafted for them. They need, gently, to be told that what they insist is their unique selling point (USP) quite often isn’t so special after all.
It’s not just them. It’s us too
All these are instances of the occasional inability of clients to step outside their own frame of reference and see things from the perspective of others. Equally, we in PR – whether we’re in-house or at an agency – need to make a habit of seeing things from across the table. In particular, we need to be mindful of the fact that we have more than one client here: not just the organisation but senior people within it as well as the individual who is our direct report. Any PR success we achieve can be a success for all of them.
That’s why, for instance, getting coverage for bylined pieces is important. A strong thinkpiece published on a key media platform attributed to one of your client’s senior executives is going to earn major brownie points for you and for your client contact. It’s also, of course, a PR coup for the senior executive: you can be darn certain that coverage is going to find its way into his or her CV.
It’s also why evaluation is crucial. PR people need to provide evidence not only on their own behalf; they also need to give their client contacts ammunition for their internal meetings. Every time those contacts make their marcomms reports they need to justify either the size of their in-house department or the annual fee they pay an external agency. “Sure our PR budget is significant, but look: this graph shows our reach on social media has doubled since last year, and our favourability rating has gone wild over the last six months. And we’ve had positive coverage in all our category A target media in the last quarter too.” It shows what a great job your contact did in having you on the team – which is good not just for you but of course for him or her too.
Lessons learned
In short, we need to remember to see things from our clients’ viewpoint. That’s part of our job.
Equally, our clients need reminding to see things from their own customers’ perspective. That’s part of our job too.
Oh and by the way: we won that business in east London. The messenger wasn’t shot, but hired.
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