Chapter 15
Picking and Measuring a PR Agency

Traditionally, a PR agency earns its fees by introducing its clients to editors of print journals that cover their industry, such as CIO Magazine or Modern Bride. This model has been beneficial for the PR firms, clients, and print journalists for several decades now.

PR agencies have two core competencies. They have a network of relationships with print media people and they are efficient at interrupting print media people in an attempt to get your new offerings in front of them. However, both of these core competencies have problems.

The first problem is that the print journalists no longer have a corner on the market for news as more people turn to bloggers and social media for critical information. The interesting thing that has happened is we have gone from a world where there were a limited number of journalists whom a PR agency needed to have relationships with to a world where everyone is a journalist. In the inbound marketing era, it is nearly impossible for a PR firm to have proprietary relationships with all of the key journalists and influencers in an industry—let alone multiple industries.

The second problem is that information is much more readily available to journalists and bloggers, so they no longer rely on PR firms to funnel it to them. Just as your customers are getting better at blocking out interruptions, journalists and bloggers are getting better at blocking out interruptions from PR firms.

In this inbound marketing era, does the PR agency still have its place? Well, it depends on your company and on the PR firm you are dealing with.

If your company is full of four-tooled players who are Digital Citizens, Analytical, have huge Reach, and are Content creators, then you might not get maximum value from a PR agency. This is particularly true about the reach criteria. If your company has some holes to fill, particularly in the reach area, then you could end up getting great value from the right type of PR agency.

Picking a PR Agency

There are a number of filters you should use when selecting a PR agency.

The first filter piggybacks on the digital citizen and reach criteria from the previous chapter. When you meet with a PR firm, you typically meet a partner who is a fantastic salesperson. Once you are on the path to a decision, you meet the team that actually works with you; these people are typically much less experienced than the partner. You should evaluate the partner, and each person on the team assigned to you, through Twitter and Facebook; look them up in LinkedIn; see if they rank first for their names in Google; and run their blogs through Website Grader. If you find that some of them are engaged less in the web than your own people, then you should probably keep looking. If you find a weak link, you might suggest it be replaced.

The second filter is to see whether the PR agency drinks its own champagne. You should run the PR agency's website through Website Grader. Many PR people will talk about how they focus on their customers and ignore their own sites when you bring up their Website Grade, or they will say they were just starting an initiative to begin inbound marketing for their own agencies. Our advice is to not buy either of these arguments. If they really understood inbound marketing, they would find the time to better market themselves.

Third, ask the prospective PR agency for the names of some of their other clients and how long their clients have been with them. Run their clients through Website Grader and note their clients' Website Grades relative to your own, and take particular note of the inbound links section and compare it to your own.

By running these three simple filters on your PR agency or prospective PR agency, you avoid getting sold by the one person in the firm who actually gets this stuff, and then being moved to the rest of the firm once you sign up. The good news is that the PR industry is full of smart people and they realize the industry is transforming, so more firms can pass these filters.

Tracking Your Progress

Once you have a PR agency, you can use many complicated and expensive tools for measuring them. We give you two simple ways to measure success.

First, you want to measure the number of new links into your site and the number of new websites linking to yours. Once you hire a PR firm, you should see the number of websites linking to your website increase in pace. This increase sends you more traffic and helps you improve your Google rankings. If you want specific bloggers and websites to link to you, then you should make a list of those sites and have your PR agency track how many of them link to you on a monthly basis. If you are not seeing a material increase in the number of sites linking to your site, you have a problem with your PR firm. If you are seeing a big increase in the number of links, your PR agency should be rewarded.

The second thing you want to measure is the number of mentions your brand(s) is getting in Google when you do a search on it and you should track this metric over time. (See Figure 15.1.) If your brand is not getting mentioned at increasing rates in Google, then you have an issue with your PR agency. If your brand is increasingly mentioned in Google, your PR agency should be rewarded.

Figure 15.1 Brand Mentions in Google

Inbound in Action: Solis, Weber, Defren & Roetzer

A handful of PR professionals out there really get it, judging by their own reach, the improved reach of their clients, and the content they are producing. Here are a few examples.

Brian Solis at FutureWorks maintains a blog called bub.blicio.us and another one called PR2.0, which both got website grades of 97, meaning they are authoritative. In addition, Brian has over 218,000 Twitter followers. “Inbound marketing versus outbound marketing is the difference between broadcast PR and genuine “public relations,” says Solis. “PR agencies, consultants, and communications professionals either establish an epicenter that serves as the resource hub for their industry or they will intentionally remove themselves from the radar screens of customers and influencers alike. In the social web, we are presented with a privilege to establish meaningful dialogue and collaborative relationships with the people who define our markets. This is an incredible opportunity to establish relevance and discoverability. Remember, consumers have choices. We're not part of those decisions where we're not present. Inbound marketing serves as the bridge between those seeking information, direction, and insight and those willing to provide guidance and support.” Solis clearly understands how to create content, optimize that content, and market it to create a following. Having him in your corner brings you expertise and some reach.

Larry Weber at W2 Group published a book called Marketing to the Social Web, which is about how to build and leverage customer communities. It is less about leveraging inbound marketing to get found by your customers and more about leveraging your existing customer community. According to Larry, “Inbound marketing is the right approach in the ‘dialogue age’ of marketing and hits the bulls-eye on the future of customer-centric relationships.”

Todd Defren at Shift Communications maintains a blog called PR-Squared that scored a 99 on Website Grader. Todd has over 25,000 followers on Twitter. According to Todd, “Inbound Marketing is findability based on authority based on authenticity based on content based on passion.”

Paul Roetzer runs PR20/20, an inbound marketing agency. His firm has a unique business model that allows companies to buy inbound marketing PR a la carte. “Inbound Marketing has given PR firms the ability to expand their service offerings and consistently deliver measurable results, including: inbound links, website traffic, leads, and sales. There is tremendous demand developing for social-media savvy agencies that can build relationships, produce search engine optimized content, and directly impact the bottom line.”

These four people get inbound marketing and have reach. The question you need to ask yourself is whether they are a good fit for your business. You also need to figure out if the people you currently work with really understand inbound marketing, or whether just the founders who create the content are the ones who actually understand it.

To Do

1. Evaluate whether you really need a PR agency.
2. Pick a PR agency by running them through the three simple filters discussed earlier.
3. Measure a PR agency by running them through the two simple filters discussed earlier.
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