PR Question: How Long Before You See Results?
PR (actually all marketing) takes time. Even in today’s ultra-quick Instagram world, it usually takes time to see traction from your public relations campaign.
One of the biggest issues we’re seeing with brands that need marketing help, outside of properly budgeting for outside PR and marketing support, is poor budgeting when it comes to time.
Many times, the Remedy team has turned down potential work because the client came to us at the last minute with a project we feel they didn’t allot enough time towards to be successful.
We’re not the only ones who feel this way.
Take Axia PR in Jacksonville, who has worked with some very impressive brands, or Michael Shane, of www.freide.co, a “a hybrid creative agency fusing media consulting and creative strategy,” based in Bill’s old stomping grounds of NYC. Now we don’t know Michael at all, but we’re a member of the same networking group on Facebook and he recently made this post lamenting a recent client that is just now seeing momentum right away.
This is only a small part of the discussion that occurred on Michael’s post.
Unfortunately, this happens all the time. We’ve worked with brands under tight time constraints and had them on national media programs and major market daily newspapers overnight… but many times, it can take weeks, often months, to start seeing momentum, let alone an impact on measurable awareness or sales (assuming you’re able to track this to begin with).
So what’s the magic number for how long you should experiment with a good PR firm?
Tough to say, especially since the first month of the program should be spent outlining the full plan and you won’t be seeing media results during that period of time. Many will tell you six months is a good timeframe to consider, but that could scale up or down depending on if you’re working on a very timely event or working with a brand that has news coming out a few seasons after this one.
Regardless, with media relations, remember that reporters are simply not sitting around waiting for your (or our) phone call. It doesn’t matter how strong the relationship is.
Please keep in mind that we’re not saying that PR firms (consultants, marketing firms, ad agencies, etc.) don’t fail to deliver. They do. It could be because they weren’t clear about potential results, promised too much and in some cases, failed to manage expectations.
However, many times when a PR program fails, it’s because there wasn’t enough time allotted to see results or it’s being compared to the ‘guaranteed impressions’ that come with buying an ad (which still don’t guarantee sales though).
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Again, special thanks to Michael Shane of http://www.freide.co/ for giving us permission to share his Facebook post.
