Get your message to the masses
by hiring a public relations firm
By Pat Curry • Bankrate.com

You're a small company with big dreams, a great product and a great story.

But meanwhile, you've got staff to hire, customers to impress, processes to develop, books to balance and a thousand other tasks that are screaming for your attention on a daily basis.

What you need is someone to boil it all down into a clear, understandable message and tell the world how wonderful you are.

Maybe it's time to think about hiring a public relations firm.

Hiring a PR firm can be a big step -- and a big investment -- for a small business, but there are times you need to bring in the big guns.

"PR means solving problems and taking advantage of opportunities," says Lynne Sallot, a public relations professor at the University of Georgia who ran her own firm for more than a decade.

She defines PR as "the business of relationship management." It's worth your time to talk to a PR professional "anytime an organization is in a situation where they need help managing a relationship, be it internal or external," she says.

What PR is -- and isn't
Understand what public relations can and can't do for you. It is not advertising -- that is a service in which you purchase and control the message. With PR, you're hoping that an intermediary, such as a newspaper or TV station, delivers the message for you. The public tends to believe the intermediary more than your paid ad, but you lose a lot of control over the way your message gets out.

But good public relations is much more than writing up press releases and flinging them at local media. It can include:

• Marketing communications, including product publicity.
• Corporate communications, such as employee communications and preparation of recruiting literature.
• Financial relations, which may include preparing annual and quarterly reports.
• Community relations, including crisis communications.

With PR, you're 'branded'
The single most important task of a growing company is to brand its name -- get the public to know the name brand -- says Richard Russakoff, a business author and strategic planning consultant for growing companies. "A good PR person or firm can brand the name."

If you think you might need a PR firm, Sallot says the first step is to explain what you think you need.

Then, let the PR firm do some research. "There's always a possibility that the situation isn't what the client thinks it is," she says.

Once the research is done and you both have a clear picture of what's going on, then the PR firm can lay out a suggested plan of action and attach a price tag to it.

How to hire
As you would with hiring any vendor, you'll want to get recommendations from business acquaintances. PRSA, the Public Relations Society of America, also suggests calling a reporter at a local paper or TV station to ask about the firms that provide the most accurate and professional information.

After you have a short list, ask for copies of releases they've done and articles generated, suggests Lisa Buyer Atkinson, a partner at L&L Communications in Deerfield Beach, Fla. Ask for references, and meet the person who will be working on your account before signing a contract. You want a good fit of personalities.

What it costs
You'll pay for the service through a hourly fees, project fees, a retainer fee or some combination of all three.

If you only need to have a pro bat out a press release and nothing more, it can cost as little as $75 to $150 per hour.

Project fees are negotiable, depending on the number of hours and the PR professional's level of experience. Junior staffers can be hired for $50 per hour or less; senior members of top agencies charge $250 per hour and up.

If you negotiate a retainer fee, it's best that you have a solid plan for what you want from the PR firm. That way, both you and the agency will know what to expect -- and many times, PR firms will toss in a few free hours a month in exchange for the steady work.

Find out what's included in the fee or retainer. You'll typically be paying for a certain number of hours per month, but you should also ask:

• Do you charge for fractions of an hour, such as a half-hour or quarter-hour?
• What's your policy on billing for travel time?
• What's the maximum number of chargeable hours per day?
• What is your payment policy, and is there any interest charge for balances due?
• Get the answers spelled out in a letter of agreement.

You'll also be billed for expenses such as postage, long-distance calls and overnight mail packages.

You may find an agency with expertise in your market -- but that may not be what you need. That was the case with FarmBid.com, an online auction for the agricultural industry that Atkinson handles.

"We're definitely not experts in farming," she says. "I went to a couple of farm shows to get familiar. Sometimes, it can be good to get someone outside the industry to give it a fresh look."

Media coverage
PR companies perform a variety of image-buffing services, but most companies want the basics -- they want media coverage, Atkinson says.

Typically, efforts to place stories will start with trade publications, followed by local and regional consumer publications, and finally national publications and television news programs.

While a firm can craft a message and put it in front of the media, they can't guarantee that anyone will actually write or run a story.

"We provide monthly reports to our clients of the media we've reached, serious leads, and list of published articles we've received that month," Atkinson says, "but that's the most we can provide as far as tangible, measurable results. We can't promise you'll get 10 articles this month or 10 articles this year. We can take your newsworthy information and present it in the best, most professional way. If the stock market crashes, that feature story you were interviewed for may not run."

Pat Curry is a freelance writer based in Georgia

-- Posted: Oct. 25, 1999