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How to Prep Your Marketing Team Before a PR Kickoff

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If you are about to start a new relationship with a PR agency the one thing you don’t want to do is walk into your PR kickoff empty handed! If you walk into a relationship without any goals or direction you will end up wasting your company’s budget and time trying to figure out the basics instead of getting immediately to work with your agency.

You have information that no longer needs to be kept under NDA, more assets than you realize that can make for great content, and goals that are no longer just yours –so it’s time to share everything in your PR kickoff so that everyone is on the same page.  Take the time to answer the questions below to boost your new relationship and help your company hit the ground running.

  1. What are your goals with your PR team? It’s surprisingly not always top-tier coverage.
  2. What’s your message to the press? If you have a pre-defined and consistent message for your company, your PR team can start immediate outreach with no lingering questions.
  3. Who are your target audiences and how do you prioritize them? The answer to this essentially defines how your PR agency will spend their time on pitching vertical publications.
  4. Who will be the main point of contact with your PR agency? For example, if you have a 5 person marketing team you might want to choose one person who is in daily contact with your PR agency and have that person take the weekly or bi-weekly calls.
  5. Do you have any pre-existing relationships with the press? Passing along this information can have a big impact when communicating with editors and analysts and can save time.
  6. What PR resources do you have that can help with immediate exposure? Any pre-existing case studies, images and videos can be a HUGE asset to a PR firm for getting your message across to the media. You should also make sure that if your PR efforts are in house that your team is using this pre-existing content to help convey your message to your customer.
  7. How do you want your PR budget allocated? There are many different ways your budget can be spent so it’s important to clarify what takes priority with your PR agency. Include everything from tradeshows and awards to editorial calendar research and social media.

Start by tackling these questions on your own. Don’t feel as though you need to walk into your PR kickoff having all of these questions answered. Do however, have some thoughts or ideas pertaining to these questions. If you come into your first PR kickoff meeting with some direction your agency can help you sort out the rest as you begin your new relationship together.

An image of PAN's Brand Experience Report on the Potentials and pitfalls of AI for marketers

In our annual Brand Experience Report, we asked marketers and customers how they are using and experiencing AI to better understand how the technology is changing that relationship.