Nurturing client/PR agency relationships
April 16th, 2010 by Wendy McAuliffe
Yesterday I worked from the office of my client Collective - a digital creative agency based in Farringdon. It was a highly productive and rewarding day, and I walked away feeling inspired and full of ideas for the campaign. We plan to make it a regular thing - a decision that both parties are really excited about.
This is not a new approach for Liberate Media - in the past we have worked regular days in the offices of some of our larger clients. However from experience, it’s an approach that PR agencies often shy away from for obvious logistical and budgetary reasons, but I thought it might be worth spelling out the reasons why it can be worth considering.
- Re-energising a campaign - no matter how good a PR you are, campaigns always need fresh thinking and new leases of energy. Spending time in a client office can be an effective way of gaining new insight into what they are working on, and hearing what they think about issues affecting them.
- Gathering campaign assets - for a client like Collective, where visual assets are the name of the game, spending time with their design team is invaluable to understanding the campaign assets that we have access too.
- Meeting with their clients - in a B2B context, working internally can provide unique opportunity to meet with your client’s clients, and discuss opportunities for joint PR. If they are big brands, the opportunities can be endless.
- Gathering material for thought leadership - the best ideas always come out over a beer in the pub, but it’s not always possible to get that sort of time with a client…unless you’re spending regular time in their office. Having regular conversation with them will make sure that you’re inside their head when it comes to thought leadership.
- Building client confidence in social media - for many, engaging in social media is still very daunting. Being there physically to delegate responsibily and provide advice on how to use specific social media tools can be a highly useful exercise.
- Streamlining processes and procedures - the nitty gritty stuff can sometimes more easily be resolved once you are able to see how processes are working for your client, making it easier for you the PR to implement changes.
- Getting to know new senior people - when senior contacts change client-side, it can sometimes have an impact on the PR campaign, and lead to a time of adjustment. Have regular visibility internally is useful for staying on-top of key relationships.
This is not an exhaustive list, but hopefully paints of picture of why working regularly within client offices can be extremely effective. Please feel free to share any similar experiences that you may have had.
Tags: client relationships, Collective, liberate media, PR
