By Rogério Artoni
Before answering these questions, you should evaluate and decide if what your business really needs is a press office. Many times, companies need other types of communications services or a communications consultancy. For example, a company with a very specific and unusual product will not have much space in the media. Working as creatively as possible with the client’s topics, a press office may be able to achieve satisfactory results for a certain period of time. However, sooner or later the time will come when you will run out of topics and the client will not have so much to talk about. Perhaps after a consulting, a short contract is a better option or even an integrated communications work focusing more intensively on the website, with content production, SEO and campaigns on the search engines.
Many times, hiring a press office can be a great solution for a company, but there must be an alignment of expectations, because media relations are not just about sending press releases to journalists. Some press offices “guarantee” a certain number of publications per month. Beware! Any press office can guarantee a minimum number of publications in media outlets with almost no relevance to the client. So, in the client’s evaluation, the guaranteed number was achieved, but the expected result didn’t. Why? Simply because there’s a lack of alignment between their target audience and where the stories about their products or services should be published.
Imagine that you have a dairy company and your press office has a story on the largest pharmaceutical media outlet in Brazil. Is it a good result? No doubt it would be if your market was the pharmaceutical, but if it has no relation with your industry, what’s the relevance of this publication? None. Therefore, if your press office does not deliver results in your industry, it’s time to ask for more results. In other words, the count is simple. The publications that your press office should get are those aimed at your target audience. Sometimes, for your business, a small article in a segmented media outlet might be a much more interesting publication than a page in the largest newspaper in Brazil.
