The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

Publicist wants tips on how to deal with impatient clients

4 Responses

1. Miriam Silverberg Says:
   January 16th, 2008 at 3:02 am

   I’m also a publicist and if you have clients asking
   after two months, you’re lucky. They ask me after two weeks! I also tell them the difference between
   PR and advertising and tell them what won’t happen:
   hire me one day and the next be on the front page of
   the Times. They laugh and say they understand and
   then a week later want to know what I’m doing that’s
   taking so long. Honestly, I don’t know what to tell
   you but I’ll be interested to hear what others say.

2. Lanada Chanel Says:
   January 16th, 2008 at 11:58 am

   I’ve had this very same problem and I’ve only been at it full time for almost a year now. I’d attributed some of it to the fact that I still need to work harder to build relationships with key media execs, never of course voicing that to my clients. However, I have began keeping track of published articles, editorials, press announcements, tv appearance, etc. we have gotten for her (however big or small they are) and produce them on a list for her (attached to monthly invoicing) along with the time put in making calls to try to get her speaking engagements and the community relations work we’re doing for her just so the client can see how much time and relationship building goes into this whole process. I figure when she sees how that all adds up, she can choose to either handle it all herself and run her business (which already keeps her overwhelmed, or let me do what I feel I do best. I start off telling my clients that I don’t promise anything…in this business, I don’t think you can really make promises. The only thing I promise is that I’ll work just as hard for them as I would for myself…and I do.

3. Barbara Rozgonyi, Wired PR Works Says:
   January 18th, 2008 at 1:23 am

   This is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote in response to this request - thanks to Joan and Gail for the inspiration! The post also includes a few tips on how to reach major media markets.

   Since we transitioned away from counting clips to more of an SEO/virtual PR visibility approach, we find that our clients appreciate their different, but more measurable and immediate results. Within 24-48 hours, many of our clients land on page one of Google news for the desired search terms.

   After a few web releases, many of them vault way ahead of their competition, both in terms of number of Google results and page rank. One client showed up at 4, 5 and 6 on page one for their keyword term for the first month or so after their release. Three months later, their news release shows up at 35/232,000 results – while their own site is buried many, many pages back.

   We’ve come up with a measurement tools like this one to gauge effectiveness: reads/impressions = response rate. Using a comparison to other direct marketing methods, where anything above 1-2% is considered a success, we interpret the results for them.

   When you distribute your news release via PRWeb at the $360 level, you’ll see stats along with search engine terms and geographic readership. So, in addition to releasing news, you’re also testing search terms and mining readership data. If you’re in the search engines, the media will find you.

4. Joan Says:
   January 23rd, 2008 at 12:58 am

   If clients are obsessed with immediate results, then give them immediate results.

   Not in the traditional media but in the hundreds of social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Squidoo. Choose just a few, create their profiles, then teach them how to use the sites. If you do it right, they could see a boost in traffic—and possibly sales—in just 24 to 48 hours.

   I’m no expert on social media, but I signed up for StomperNet’s 12-week coaching program, so I’ll be sharing some of those tips at this blog and in my newsletter. Stay tuned.

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