5 Questions to Ask a Public Relations Professional Before Hiring Them

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One of the most popular questions from a company. hire a public relations agency it’s what journalistic contacts they have and how deep their relationships are.

While it’s understandable to think this is important, it’s not the right question to ask a PR person. Regardless of who they meet, they will only get responses if they give their contacts a tone that captures their interest.

This means it’s much more essential to find someone who can help you proactively find and react to newsworthy topics, generate fresh ideas to position you as a thought leader and help you create high-quality angles and pieces that the media will be eager to publish.

So instead of asking WHO they know, focus on that know, and ask them these five questions. Each answer will show you what results you can expect and whether a particular PR professional is right for your needs.

Related: How you can help your PR provider help you

1. What angle can you suggest for my story?

The Reuters news agency notes that Relevance is the number one driver of a great story, so another way to phrase this question would be, “Why should people care about what I’m saying?”

Your article should be interesting to your readers (including the editor or journalist you’re targeting!) and have a unique perspective that makes you stand out from the crowd. The right PR agency should be able to suggest at least general ideas about your business that can then be adapted to specific posts and resonate with your readers.

2. What will the headline be?

The headline catches the eye or loses the reader. Research shows that 80% of people will read a headline, but only about 20% read beyond that. There is fierce competition for readers’ attention, so paying more attention to the headline can be the difference between your content getting viral traction or just a few clicks.

When you’re deciding whether or not to work with a PR agency, ask them what your story’s headline will be, and they should be able to produce a few options in a way that grabs your attention and makes you want to keep reading. This will also give you a good idea of ​​what the focus of the story will be and if it aligns with your business goals.

While it’s rarely helpful to spend a lot of time creating a title (publishers usually want to make their own), it’s a great exercise in filtering out the best. public relations professionals who understand both business and journalism.

3. What is the news hook on which we are going to hang our story?

The idea of ​​a “news tab” means finding a relevant current event to link to your story. It’s similar to angle, but it’s more like what your angle is going to hook. For example, a green tech company might link a thought leadership piece to an upcoming climate change summit or the current European energy crisis. A cybersecurity firm may link a new product launch to a recent public data breach or request government regulations on a hot technology.

Finding the right “peg” for your story helps make it timely and relatable. People read the news to have something to talk about with others, so linking your story to an event is the ideal way to share it, read and spoken. Many large publications won’t even consider a story without a news tab. Be sure to check if your PR agency is deep into the relevant news and can offer a way to logically insert it into the agenda.

Related: Why you need a PR agency and how to choose one wisely

4. What publications are we going to address?

When work with a public relations agencyYou want to make sure they have experience in posts that are relevant to your business.

It’s worth mentioning that the agency may not rattle off a Tier 1 post list, and that’s not always a bad thing. It’s normal to think that you should always aim for the biggest outlets, but that’s not necessarily true. Instead of hearing “just big names,” ask them why they chose each medium, which media formats they plan to focus on, and who the readers are.

Sometimes opting for more niche posts can improve your reach and give you more influence, increasing your ability to get your story out to the right people. This is why asking these questions instead can help you gain insight into whether or not they understand your business goals and how to appeal to them. your target audience.

5. Who are we going to address and what format will we use?

As a writer whose work has been featured in outlets like Forbes, Fast Company, and other major publications, I get proposals every day. I’ve only written for those magazines as a freelance contributor, but people suggested op-eds to me all the time as if I were an editor with the power to approve or deny posts for the site.

These pitches show me how little media training PR people have because they don’t know the difference between a staff editor, commissioning editor and freelance contributor, and the formats they can offer them. I have even seen these types of emails from people who work with large consulting agencies. People with no journalism background rarely understand how newsrooms work, and this leads to big mistakes like this one, which can block them in journalist mailboxes.

The advice here is to always choose the right editor or reporter to lead your pitch. If it’s a story, you don’t send it to a commissioning editor, and if it’s an opinion piece, any reporter wouldn’t be a good fit. Study the formats that people in newsrooms work with, and try to offer the most relevant piece so that it has the best chance of be elected and published in the magazine.

Related: The 5 Answers You Need Before Hiring a PR Agency