Epic Communications

Choosing an agency
Before selecting an agency, make sure you know what it is you want out of your campaign. While some agencies specialise in managing events or product placements, others may be more adept at delivering on more cerebral and issues driven campaigns. Agencies also tend to specialise in different sectors, so while some may have the necessary skills and experience to successfully promote companies in the entertainment sector, others may have their areas of expertise in financial or professional services.	Make sure the agency you choose has experience in and understands the industry in which you are operating. A strong indicator that your prospect public relations agency will do a good job is if they ask lots of questions and demonstrate a basic level of understanding of your industry. Note: Never trust a public relations agency that delivers your entire public relations strategy based on a quick call to you. How can your public relations consultant hope to understand	the specific business goals of your company without spending sufficient time with you? Public relations is an important business investment and shouldn't be rushed. Ask agencies for credential presentations and invite those you like to respond to your brief about your PR campaign. Make your final decision based on their specific pitch, their areas of expertise, track record and professionalism.

What about costs?
When selecting a top agency, it is also important to base your decision on the value they can deliver, not price alone. From the outset know exactly what portion of your marketing (or assigned public relations) budget the business is prepared to invest. A top agency will match the best mix of its services against your budget to maximise the results – clearly aligned with your brief and ultimate business goals. Also consider the implications of project	vs retainer costs. While an ad-hoc approach to PR can be implemented (such as a project fee), a retainer structure is often the most cost-effective service offering when rolling out a medium to long term communications campaign. A retainer structure also allows an agency to be more proactive with its media initiatives, as well as ensuring that predetermined brand messages are consistently communicated over time.	This is key for consistent ‘on-message’ media presence when informing and educating your target markets of the range and benefits of products and services and profiling key executives as industry experts. This structure also allows for long term relationship building between an agency and client, whereby the agency intrinsically understands the workings of an organisation and effectively becomes its brand ambassador.

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