Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
PR is a relationship-driven industry. As such, mastering client relations is central to a successful career in PR – especially in an agency setting. A critical component of client relations is understanding and managing expectations.
Outlined below are five tips for managing client expectations.
No. 1: Ask Specific Questions
Good questions consider the future. They aim to draw out the information necessary to understand what’s needed to accomplish a task. One best practice is to develop and outline questions before a meeting with a client. This way, you can think critically about whether the questions will home in on the information you need most or if you need to make any adjustments.
For example, you want to ask questions such as:
- What results will you need to see to consider this campaign successful?
- Is there anyone else on this project that will be providing input?
- What is the approval process?
- How often would you like to receive an update on the project status?
- Is email your preferred method of communication or would you prefer updates another way?
- Are you comfortable with us prioritizing Project X over Project Y to stay within our agreed upon-budget?
Use a mix of yes/no and open-ended questions. Using a mix of question types can provide a balance between efficiency and thoroughness and can allow you to gather both broad and specific information. For example, you might use yes/no questions to quickly gather basic information about a person’s background or experience, and then use open-ended questions to explore those topics in more depth.
Also, since you don’t always want to influence the client’s response, it’s important to use neutral wording to encourage an honest answer. The more you can learn about a client’s expectations, the business and its needs, the better you can anticipate expectations in the future.
No. 2: Listen and Recap Takeaways
As you ask questions, listen carefully to what the client is telling you. If you’re on a virtual call, ask if you can hit record, so your attention is on active listening, rather than taking notes. If you’re in person, determine and designate a specific participant to take notes or record the proceedings.
Repeat back to the client what you’re hearing during your discussion. This might sound like, “What I’m hearing is XYZ. Is that accurate?” or “Based on what you’ve shared, I envision our next steps will be ABC. Do you agree?”
It’s also vital to send a written recap of the discussion to the client after the meeting. Be specific on who owns which action items and expected deadlines. Active listening and recapping discussions are great ways to alleviate redundancies, create alignment and secure optimal results.
No. 3: Establish Timelines and Deadlines
Many professionals understandably relate to the motivation deadlines provide, which generally helps ensure projects stay on track and within budget.
By outlining clear timelines and deadlines you provide your client a clear grasp and vision of how you plan to meet goals and objectives. When necessary, be specific about what roadblocks might crop up, their potential impact, and how your team plans to overcome them to keep the project on track. Provide updates on the project’s progress regularly, as agreed upon at the start of the project.
If you anticipate you won’t meet a deadline, communicate that to the client as early as possible. Be transparent about the cause of the delay, if appropriate – but be careful not to make excuses. Ensure you communicate the new deadline clearly and ask if they have any concerns with the adjusted timeline.
No. 4: Outline Anticipated Results
Anticipated results are central to managing client expectations. As previously mentioned, ask questions about what results would make the campaign successful for the client. Is it coverage in a specific publication? A particular number of articles? The presence of key messages in a write-up? An increase in share of voice or positive sentiment over time?
This understanding informs your strategies and tactics and how you forecast anticipated results in advance of a project. Having advance notice of expected results beforehand gives the client time to react, ask questions and adjust expectations if needed. It also ensures the teams are aligned on what’s realistically achievable.
No. 5: Measure and Report on Actual Results
Clear, measurable goals ensure that PR strategies are effective. In a professional world that is increasingly focused on data-driven outcomes, it’s vital to track results. You might share them via a written report about a specific project, in a weekly, monthly or quarterly status report, or verbally in a meeting. Ultimately, aim to answer the direct questions, “Did we meet or exceed the client’s expectations? Why or why not?”
How you share results should align with what your client has stated works best for them. Your client will likely be reporting PR results to their superiors/colleagues, so it’s essential you recap results in a way that dovetails nicely with the reports they will share internally.
Managing client expectations is not always easy but establishing a clear picture of what your clients truly value is the key to building a long-lasting and impactful relationship.
So, you’ve won the business of a new client. Congrats! And so begins the critical onboarding process for a new client that can set the tone for the entire working relationship. Starting off on the right foot is crucial in order to set realistic expectations and standards on how to communicate and to build goodwill. The next step is for your team to get prepared so you can hit the ground running to drive meaningful results.
Onboarding new clients is a valuable process. Getting yourself and your team up to speed on your client’s immediate objectives is essential to laying a solid foundation for the partnership.
Below is a guide to creating a strong onboarding experience that sets your team up for long-term success.
- Monitor industry trends. Set up Google alerts to monitor your client’s key competitors and stay abreast of other vital news impacting your client.
- Conduct a media audit. If you didn’t do this as part of your new business pitch, it’s a good idea to review and analyze your client’s and its competitors’ editorial coverage. This will help you understand how your client’s coverage differs from its competitors. This analysis may also inform the ideas and strategies you recommend and serve as a baseline for tracking results.
- Know your client’s priorities. It’s critical to understand your client’s priorities, short and long-term goals, key competitors and perspectives. This is vital in defining the right strategies and knowing where to focus your resources and energy.
- Align on KPIs. Establish shared expectations around the measurement of results. Specifically, know how your client defines success, the KPIs that are important to them and how often they want progress reports or results recaps.
- Develop foundational materials. Begin developing the materials you will leverage throughout the partnership. For instance, create a story arc, develop key messages, and identify the supporting data that will be used to guide future campaigns.
Winning the business of a new client is an exciting time. However, it’s crucial that you put the time and resources into onboarding that will pave the way to success for both you and your client. Creating a strong foundation from the start will guarantee that your team won’t need to go back and execute these steps later on, leading you to successful PR campaigns from the get-go.
With many leaders embarking on planning for the coming year, I thought it might be helpful to explore the optimal team structure for corporate communications.
It is worth thinking about the structure of the communications department because beyond laying out the reporting structure, it can have a huge impact on workflow, workloads and collaboration. And these things can in turn have an impact on employee satisfaction, team effectiveness and efficiency.
What is the optimal structure for my comms team?
The answer depends on your organization’s objectives, the functional areas you’re overseeing, and how much lateral or cross-team coordination will be required. Many heads of communications are responsible for corporate comms, product communications, employee comms, influencer programs and social media.
The options for team structure include:
- Internal managers or specialists for each of these areas
- External vendors for each of these areas
- Blended teams of internal staff and external agencies
Is there an ideal number of people for a comms department?
No. The idea team is often a function of company objectives, the type and volume of work that needs to be completed, and the expense budget the company can allocate to communications. We have clients who are part of large teams of 15 or more and others who are the sole communications leader in their company.
What is the comms leaders’ role?
As mentioned above, comms leaders typically oversee a variety of activity. It often includes corporate brand communications, crisis comms, product communications, influencer relations, media relations, internal comms and social media.
Leaders are often responsible for hiring and motivating staff. They ensure people are prioritizing the right activities and have the information and tools they need to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.
And leaders need to be good problem solvers because their direct reports will often turn to them when they’re unsure of what to do.
Finally, because the leader often oversees a variety of functional areas, they also play an important role in lateral communication within their team and the broader organization. They often must ensure information is shared with internal comms and external comms at the same time so they both can begin planning and preparing. For instance, if a company is doing layoffs internal comms and external comms must be handled with care.
Is there anything else I can do to avoid information silos on my team?
Consider a weekly or biweekly meeting with your team leaders where they share a high-level summary of the projects they’re working on with the larger team. A standing meeting can go a long way toward guaranteeing there is information sharing between teams. These meetings don’t have to be long: The goal is simply to quickly share an update on activity and, if there is activity that must be coordinated across teams, set up additional meetings to enable that to happen.
Formalize team collaboration and communication. Let managers know that part of their job is to think about and communicate in a timely manner with their colleagues.
Another more radical idea is to adopt a matrix structure, in which an individual reports up to one or more managers. For example, a communication specialist might have two bosses, such as the external communications manager overseeing PR and the internal communications manager.
In this situation, the managers work together. They jointly set objectives, supervise work, help with professional growth and development, and provide performance appraisals. Therefore, by default, there should be more communication between the managers, fostering better lateral or cross-silo communication.
Clearly, there are many ways to structure and grow your communications team. But as leaders embark on planning for 2023, it’s a wonderful time to consider whether their department structure still works given their priorities. If not, leaders should consider changes.
With 2022 nearly gone, it’s time to begin planning for the coming year.
Strategic planning helps make sure you’re clear about your client’s business and communications objectives and how to achieve them in 2023. Below are five tips for strategizing in the new year.
Realign on communication objectives
Clear objectives create winning strategies. Have a conversation with your client about their goals and how PR can help them achieve the right outcomes. This is also a wonderful time to discuss any changes in messaging, products and services, and operations that could affect your program.
Implementing a PR program without these updates is like trying to bake a cake without a list of ingredients. Without an understanding of what is required, you can’t design a PR program that will produce the desired results.
Evaluate successful (and unsuccessful) strategies
Another important step is analyzing your previous PR efforts. What strategies were successful? Which missed the mark?
Consider KPIs such as client feedback, reporter response rate, client retention, and coverage amount and quality. If you’re looking for ideas about how to measure media coverage, check out my colleague’s recent blog post specifically analyzing message pull-through and outlet readership.
Understanding what worked helps you focus on strategies with proven track records. Use past success to drive future results.
Re-evaluate media targets
Just as many people use New Year’s resolutions to clean up their lives, PR professionals should clean up their media lists. It is common to use similar media lists and contacts for pitching throughout the year. But to get the most out of these lists, it’s necessary to update them. A good practice is to update your list throughout the year when you receive bouncebacks or learn a reporter has left their position.
Don’t stop at edits, though. Media lists should evolve with your client. Consider any new verticals or targets where your client can be a part of the conversation. When analyzing a new publication, search for articles that could relate to your client. Make a note of the author and add them to your media lists.
Going into 2023 with stronger media lists will optimize pitching results and drive coverage.
Identify important dates
The new year means new opportunities. Identify the deadlines for key events for editorial calendar opportunities, speaking engagements and conferences.
This information is typically on a publication’s website. However, if the publication staff hasn’t updated opportunities for the new year, it never hurts to send an email. Get a jump before January, though, because many deadlines come sooner than you think. You don’t want to miss a valuable PR opportunity because a deadline snuck past you.
Consider year-in-review or predictions stories
In December and January, it is typical for publications to run year-in-review stories and trends or predictions for the new year. These packages are often planned well in advance and are listed on a publication’s editorial calendar.
These articles are a great way to secure a product or company write-up or to showcase your client as a thought leader. Take advantage of this time of year by inserting your client into the conversation. Highlight their successes, significant accomplishments and announcements for the new year in a momentum-focused press release.
Your PR New Year’s resolution to enhance your strategies begins well before Jan. 1. To attain results and satisfied clients, start planning now.
These are polarizing times. Many companies not only have to navigate layoffs, economic headwinds and fiercely divided politics, but they must also create meaningful and savvy communications that resonate with key stakeholders and employees.
Reaching different audiences that might be at odds is a challenge, but there are ways to craft forward-thinking communications that strike the right tone and balance.
Now is a perfect time to prepare your messaging for these challenges. You want to ensure your communications add value and represent your audiences and mission while being clear, open and honest. Here are a few ways companies can approach and reframe their messaging during exigent times.
Economic Headwinds
In facing economic headwinds, timing is critical. If companies are bracing for a downturn, they need to determine when it’s best to communicate these changes to employees and important stakeholders. Is it as soon as the news arises? Right before the changes are implemented? Or somewhere in between? For many companies, the timing will be dependent on the severity, how many people it will impact and when the changes will go into effect.
Message clarity is key. Companies should develop clear communications that identify what impacts they are preparing for, how these changes will affect the company, and what they mean for the future. For example, if a business is cutting expenses in its IT department, having a concise and transparent message on what is transpiring in the department and how IT teams can prepare will ensure a smooth transition during the taxing time.
Even if some events don’t happen, having messaging in place that addresses those potential changes can help companies communicate clearly with employees. Prepared messaging can help with adjustments during these times and make employees feel that the company genuinely supports and cares for them.
Layoffs
If your company is downsizing, it’s critical to create a central, unified message. Often, companies fail to agree on messaging or don’t strike the right tone when addressing different audiences. To avoid this, companies should first communicate a clear, honest and open explanation for the layoffs. Be respectful and compassionate toward the affected audience. Strike this tone by sharing forward-thinking messaging that summarizes what people need to know, why the action is happening, and what’s being done for impacted employees. Messaging is all about trust. If your intent is unclear or incomplete, audiences may think you lack compassion or are hiding significant information.
Finally, make sure the message comes from the right people. Often, a trusted individual, such as a C-suite executive, direct manager or HR representative, can better help deliver the news and provide a sense of comfort and familiarity for impacted employees.
Politics
Communicating in a politically polarized environment means thinking strategically about how different people will view your message – not just target audiences. Companies must examine their messaging through a political lens, considering a range of perspectives.
For example, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, many companies spoke out against it. Amazon, Starbucks and JPMorgan Chase are just a few of the organizations that publicly stated they will pay for travel fees incurred by workers seeking an abortion if the procedure is unavailable near where they live.
Dipping into politics can be risky, but it’s critical that companies stay true to their mission and values. You can prepare to address negative comments and controversy by considering your messaging from all perspectives. Doing this allows you to identify possible reactions and create strategic plans to address potential conflicts.
It is assuredly worth the effort, in finding a deft balance to tone and balance, to craft strong and effective communications in polarizing times.
There are different ways to measure the success of a media campaign. For some companies, the number of articles is the most important; for others, it’s about one hit in a target publication. Ultimately, measuring coverage should connect to your company’s objectives.
In a recent PR Daily article, Senior Editor Allison Carter wrote about a media coverage scorecard presented at PR Daily’s Media & Measurement Conference. The scorecard creates a framework for measuring coverage based on “desirable criteria” and “undesirable criteria.” The scorecard is split in two columns to identify if the coverage is positive or negative toward a company’s overall goals.
The desirable column includes checkboxes to score if the article has a positive headline, includes a desirable visual, contains a positive message and mentions an event or program, among other elements. In the undesirable column, the rows include the opposite measures, (e.g., contains one or more negative messages, a negative headline or has an undesirable visual, etc.).
At a high level, the objective of the scorecard is to measure beyond whether or not you secure the coverage and determine if the article is “good.”
While these factors help classify if coverage is positive, it’s important to take a step back and look at the messages in the article. A message can be positive, but there might be other takeaways you want for the reader. For example, if your company is eager to attract and retain talent, an article in a business publication that raves about your solutions might help attract potential customers, but not attract applicants.
Therefore, when crafting campaigns and coaching spokespeople, it’s essential to make sure you have alignment on the messages your audiences need to hear and understand. This will help ensure that the resulting coverage will include some of those messages.
Every interview, pitch and press release quote does not need to include all key messages. However, aiming to have at least two or three of those messages in a campaign can help increase the likelihood that at least one will come through in the final article.
Message Pull-through
Message pull-through is a measurement that can help determine the effectiveness and quality of coverage. After an article publishes, you can measure pull-through by looking at if and how your key themes came across. When calculating message pull-through, you should create a chart that lists your top three to five key messages. Then, when reviewing the coverage, check the boxes to highlight which messages were included in each article. You’ll be able to see which themes are coming through and if you need to change any processes to diversify messages. Something as simple as the chart below:
|
Message/Theme |
Y |
N |
|
Improved efficiency |
X |
|
|
Robust team |
X |
|
|
Scalability |
|
X |
|
Higher employee satisfaction |
X |
|
You can then tally up the findings in a way that best aligns with other metrics tracking (e.g., X number of articles mention scalability, or X percent of articles include messages about scalability and efficiency, etc.).
Outlet Readership and Reach
Another critical element to consider when measuring the quality of coverage is the outlet and its readership. This goes hand-in-hand with message pull-through. You might have the right messages, but the article is less effective if those messages reach the wrong audiences.
In many industries, some audiences prioritize different messages, so evaluating the outlet and its relevance to your specific audience will also impact the success of message pull-through and the overall “quality” of the article. Additionally, if the theme and audience are correct, the publication’s reach can also improve the quality of the coverage. For example, if a company wants to raise awareness of its brand and can reach many more individuals with one publication and article, it can meet its goals and save budget.
Scorecards aren’t a one-size-fits-all measurement. It’s best to work with your marketing and PR teams to create a custom tracker that aligns with your goals and that you can update as those goals evolve.
Have you set new communication objectives for 2023? Will those goals change the way you track results? Reach out to our team to help you create a tailored scorecard for measuring coverage.