HOW TO PICK A PR AGENCY
HOW TO PICK A PR AGENCY
You’ve closed your funding round. The money is in the bank, your investors are excited and you’re ready to tell the world.
Now you need a PR agency.
But the right agency should do more than send out a press release. They help you to use that funding moment to build credibility, reach investors, attract talent, raise your founders’ profiles and create momentum for what comes next.
Here’s how to choose the right PR agency for your business.
What is PR?
PR, or public relations, is the practice of influencing how a company is understood by the audiences that matter to it.
For startups, that usually means building credibility and awareness through media coverage, interviews, opinion pieces, podcasts or speaking at events.
Unlike advertising, where you pay for space, PR is earned media: persuading a journalist that your company, founder, data or point of view is worth featuring.
Good PR should support a business objective. That might mean reaching investors, attracting hires, winning customers, announcing a partnership or establishing a founder as an expert in their field.
When should i hire a PR agency?
A good time to hire a PR agency is when you have something credible to say and a clear reason for wanting people to hear it.
Closing a funding round such as Series A is an obvious trigger. It gives journalists a reason to write about the business and creates a launching off point to build a longer term PR plan.
After the funding announcement, you might want to announce new hires, customer wins, partnerships, market launches or products. You may also want your founders commenting on industry news, appearing on podcasts or writing opinion pieces.
What should i look for in a PR agency?
Look for an agency that understands your commercial goals, knows your sector and can turn complex information into stories journalists actually care about.
There are five things worth looking at.
1. Do they understand your business objectives?
Your PR strategy should start with your goals, not a list of publications.
A good agency should ask who you are trying to reach and why.
For a Series A company, that might include:
investors;
potential customers;
new hires;
strategic partners;
policymakers;
future investors ahead of your next raise.
At Harpswood, we start by agreeing the audiences and objectives first, then build the PR activity around them.
2. Do they understand startups?
Startup PR requires speed, judgement and an understanding of what is genuinely newsworthy.
A funding round may feel huge internally, but journalists see investment announcements every day. A good agency will find the bigger story behind the number.
Why has the investment happened now? What problem are you solving? What have you achieved that competitors haven’t? What does your growth say about the wider market?
They should also be comfortable working quickly. Opportunities appear suddenly and founders are often balancing media with a hundred other priorities.
3. Can they tell you what journalists will care about?
The right PR agency for your business will tell you when something is not newsworthy.
Ask prospective agencies how they would pitch your company to a journalist in two sentences.
If they can only describe you using words like “innovative”, “disruptive” or “game-changing”, that should raise questions.
The best agencies understand how newsrooms work and can identify the angle that makes a journalist stop and pay attention. At Harpswood the team is made up of senior ex-journalists across print and broadcast with a collective 53 years of experience. You can read more about our team here.
4. Can they build your senior leaders’ profiles?
Founder profiling is about making company leaders recognised and trusted voices in their industry.
For companies at Series A and beyond, this can be especially valuable. Investors investigate leadership teams, potential hires want to know who they would be working for and journalists need experts who can explain what is happening in a sector.
A founder-profile programme might include interviews, expert commentary, opinion articles, podcasts, broadcast appearances and speaking opportunities.
The goal is to create a strong association between your founder, their area of expertise and your company.
5. Can they do more than announce your funding?
Your funding round should be the start of your PR strategy, not the end of it.
Before appointing an agency, ask what month two, month three and month six could look like.
At Harpswood, our services include:
messaging and positioning;
media relations;
funding and milestone announcements;
founder profiling;
thought leadership;
newsjacking;
media training;
campaigns and case studies;
speaking opportunities and events;
competitor analysis.
You may not need all of those from day one. A good agency will tell you what matters most for your stage of growth.
How do i choose between PR agencies?
The best PR agency is not necessarily the biggest or the one promising the most coverage hits. It is the one you trust to take the time to understand your business, challenge you when necessary and represent you well.
Ask yourself:
Do they understand our company?
Did they bring ideas we hadn’t considered?
Do they know our sector and the journalists covering it?
Are their recommendations specific to us?
Will the senior team stay involved?
Would I trust them to speak to a journalist about our business?
Chemistry matters too. At Harpswood we act as an extension of our clients teams, we spend a lot of time working together and regularly visit our clients at their offices. You need people you can work with closely.
So, how should i pick a PR agency?
Choose the agency that understands where your company is going, not just the announcement you need to make next week.
Ask them for results, what work have they done in your sector and for your size of business?
At Harpswood we also offer prospective clients a call with our current clients so you can hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
Done well, PR can help an unknown business become credible. It can put you in front of investors and customers, attract talented hires, build your founders’ profiles and create momentum for future growth.
At Harpswood, we work with ambitious businesses to build credibility in the media and tell the stories that matter to the people they need to reach. You can read about our recent work announcing NewOrbit’s Series A here.
If you’ve just closed a funding round, want to shout about your project or partnerships or are looking to raise the profile of your senior leaders - we’d love to talk. Fill out this form and we’ll be in touch.