How to Explain the Value of PR to Your Clients

4 Pieces Of The Value Of PR To Help You Educate Your Clients

Let’s talk about the real value of PR so that you can help educate your clients on ROI and what to expect. We’re going to explore four factors that you can consider explaining. That way, your clients will know exactly why they should invest in PR—and that you’re the one for the job.  

PR Helps Amplify Other Initiatives

PR can help amplify the other initiatives that your clients have going on. And that amplification helps create consumer demand at the point of purchase. When a business is trying to pitch a product to be picked up by retailers, it really helps to have PR—it lets them drive awareness and sell-through for retailers.

You can drive traffic to your clients’ websites with PR, capture customers’ emails and continue to market to them. PR offers a way to get people into a business’s world even before they purchase!

You need to show your clients that PR hits are SO much more valuable than a paid ad because it's the media endorsing them rather than them endorsing themselves. 

With PR, You Start Achieving The “Rule Of 7”

Have you ever heard of the “Rule of 7?” It basically means that a potential customer has to see your message 7 times before they’ll take action. 

PR is a way to reach potential customers at multiple touchpoints in a condensed period of time. For example, you can get products placed with influencers, in different media outlets, and across social media platforms. 

When you get your client’s messaging in multiple places, it not only helps build trust and boost conversions among prospective customers. It also helps position that brand alongside other top-tier brands! 

When you’re able to align your client’s company with others featured in a particular media outlet or by a particular influencer, their target audience will automatically associate them together, which builds credibility. You’re able to elevate your client’s brand by having them be featured among other known brands. 

Related: 3 Steps to Create an Effective Press Plan for 2022

You’re Able TO Amplify Key Messaging For A Brand

PR amplifies the key messaging that the brand wants to have out there. You get to provide journalists and editors with the messaging that you WANT them to share. And although you can’t control it 100%, typically, they WILL use your messaging because it’s accurate and factual. 

You can also make sure certain key fact points are shared by the media. Those fact points are a lot more trustworthy (and consumers are more receptive to it) from a third party than from a brand’s own website. 

PR Boosts Launches and Sales

PR can make launches and sales more successful. A successful launch should include a solid, coordinated PR campaign! 

Of course, make sure your clients understand that PR doesn’t necessarily equate to increased sales. But when they’re having a launch, PR is super helpful. Moreover, especially if your client has (or is willing to have) affiliate marketing links, media outlets will want to feature them, which can of course lead to increased sales. 

How To Educate Your Clients On The Value of PR

Now that we’ve covered 4 of the big-picture pieces you can share with clients, let’s get to the nitty-gritty. 

How do we educate our clients about the value of PR? And how do we make sure that working with clients is smooth and easy throughout the whole process once you’ve educated them? 

Remember To Let Your Clients Know That PR Is Cumulative

Remember to let your clients know that PR is cumulative. It takes time to see PR results, and then they really snowball on top of each other once you get the ball rolling. 

You’re convincing people to be interested in a brand by telling compelling stories...and people have to check into it before they talk about it and generate more buzz! Once people start seeing a brand story in multiple places, results start to happen. It also takes a while for media to convert pitches into placements, and for those placements to reach the consumer and raise awareness over time to actually take action. 

PR isn’t a quick shot in the arm for a business, even though lots of people have the misconception that it is. It takes time to get everything flowing and for you to see conversions. The value of what we’re doing as PR pros is building momentum—and the clients that have the best success view PR as an ongoing effort. 

You shouldn’t work with a client who wants to give you less than 4 months to achieve results— that’ll set you up for failure because of the timeframe that things take. You should redirect clients who insist on immediate results toward social media and paid advertising.

Remember, you’re the expert…so ultimately, it’s up to you to make sure that your potential clients understand that the value of PR is in playing a long game. 

Vet Your Clients Thoroughly

This is where vetting your clients really becomes important. You have to make sure that clients will be a good fit for PR in general as well as your specific services. 

That includes things like: 

• The length of your retainer (never shorter than six months—we talk a LOT about this inside The Agency Accelerator!)
• Their goals and expectations for PR
• Whether they understand that PR is a long-term strategy
• If they’re nitpicking your rates (they might not understand the value of PR in this case)

You want to only work with high-end clients who truly understand the value of PR. More importantly, they need to know that PR and sales aren’t the same thing! Inside The Agency Accelerator, we really go over how to identify, find, and land your dream clients who just get it. 

Help Your Clients Set Realistic Expectations

Help your clients set expectations about how long things take and what they can expect and when. Oftentimes, clients aren’t super familiar with PR…which means it’s totally up to YOU to make sure their expectations are realistic. 

Make sure your prospective clients understand that PR pros are never responsible for sales — that’s advertising. PR can definitely help boost sales, but it’s not a guarantee. If they’re coming into this experience only hoping to boost sales, they’re likely not a good fit—and if you do work with them, they’ll likely be disappointed no matter what results you generate. 

During the discovery call process, you need to get really clear information about your potential clients’ goals...and help the clients see whether those are realistic (and how PR will play into those goals). 

Related: Do You Struggle With Meeting Client Expectations? Here's What to Do

Focus On Metrics Tracking and Reporting

Tracking metrics and reporting your results to clients is the BEST way to literally show the value of PR. 

Inside The Agency Accelerator, we actually have a whole masterclass with the amazing Shauna Nuckles talking about all things PR reporting! It’s a comprehensive masterclass that will teach you everything you need to know about reporting to show value. 

Once you fully understand your client’s goals, you can match them up with KPIs (key performance indicators). Then, you can show those KPIs off as you generate results and maximize your clients’ satisfaction. 

Pro tip—if you use a tool like MuckRack, they have an advertising value equivalency metric that you can use to quantify an estimated value for the placements you receive.

Know That Educating Clients On The Value of PR Is An Ongoing Process

I have one last point to make...and I’m sure that it’s going to be a little hard to hear. If clients are asking you to show the value of your services, most likely, you didn’t do the best job vetting them or onboarding them. 

You need to consider switching up your strategy for seeking and selecting clients, identifying red flags, educating clients, and setting expectations for your new clients. These are all essential topics we cover inside The Agency Accelerator...and really, these topics just scratch the surface of what we go over inside the program! 

Educating clients about the value of PR really needs to start in the discovery call process and continue on through everything—the proposal, onboarding, and when you’re providing services and seeing results. If you can master weaving the value of PR into the ENTIRE PR experience, you’re going to wow your clients and deliver results that seriously dazzle. 

It’s time to start educating your clients on the value of PR! These tips will help you educate (and vet) your clients so that everyone is happy.