Does PR even work?
“We got nothing back.”
Yes we can!
I hate to start on a negative but I can’t tell you the amount of times that a potential client tells me that they had a ‘bad experience’ with a PR agency.
Although it’s tempting to tell them that they would have a better experience working with us, I never do. It always gives me the insight that something broke down in the relationship, whether it was planning, expectations, perhaps the job was far bigger than the agency imagined it could be. Perhaps the agency was terrible. Perhaps the client was difficult. Probably the budget was out of sync with the scope of work.
There are a million reasons why a campaign might deviate and meander from what was originally agreed. No one said it would be easy, but the smart thing to do is react and change within the campaign restrictions
I had a bad experience with a builder
I tend to think of it in the same way that I would with a builder. I’ve had a bad experience with a builder. In fact I’ve had loads of bad experiences with plumbers, mechanics and electricians. This does not mean that I fundamentally do not believe that bricks hold up houses, or that I won’t get my tap fixed because I previously had a bad experience. Or that I’m not going to have electricity in the house because I got ripped off and overcharged by an electrician.
PR still works. Managing your reputation still has value, and is still crucial even though things might not have panned out as well as you would like.
“We got nothing back”, some clients say. But there will be a reason why and the smart thing to do is to work through and find the solution. There is no business, no product and no individual who cannot benefit from a strategic PR campaign.
So the next time a potential client tells you, woefully, that they’ve had a bad experience of PR – tell them that you’ve had a bad experience too yet on we go. Yes we can!
Ask the client, how can we make this work? Where exactly did it go wrong? What can we learn from this? How must any new campaign come to life in the light of what has gone before.