Your goal is to select a public relations agency to handle a new product launch. The RFP nets four respondents; their proposed budgets range from $100,000 to $500,000. How do you evaluate their plans? While it’s true that you usually get what you pay for, should you automatically discount the lowest budget (or the highest for that matter)? Wouldn’t it be helpful to have a tool to determine which proposals are priced fairly?

To help compare agencies, you need benchmarks to determine what firms charge for various tasks. Although hourly rates for agency talent may range from $75 to $350, rates alone don’t tell you the full story. The key to establishing a reasonable public relations budget is to determine what an agency charges for typical projects and how many hours of creative time it takes to complete these projects.

I hope these guidelines help you establish accurate baseline budgets that cover creative fees as well as out-of-pocket expenses. After all, you wouldn’t buy a new car without knowing what you’ll be charged for cruise control, air conditioning and other features. Why would you hire an agency without knowing what you should expect to pay for their services? (However be forewarned: Not all agencies share this philosophy, so don’t be surprised if some balk at discussing prices with you before they submit proposals.

External public relations campaigns for technology companies typically include elements from these areas:

• Media relations
• Industry analyst relations
• Messaging services
• Writing services and
• Account services

Traditional Public Relations Programs Components

1) Media Relations Services
a) Monthly media relations
This area will have the biggest impact on the success or failure of your public relations program. Despite advances in electronic distribution, public relations is, and always will be, a relationship business. Your public relations agency must have strong media relations capabilities; their relationships with editors and reporters will go a long way toward determining the success or failure of your public relations campaign. That doesn’t mean agencies are only as good as their ‘Rolodex’, but that they need to understand who to relate to about your stories and news.

Basic media relations activities include the following:

• Maintaining ongoing contact with key editors
• Pitching stories to editors
• Following up on press releases
• Placing all feature articles and case studies
• Identifying and submitting companies for industry awards
• Tracking product reviews and interview opportunities and
• Monitoring key publications, media outlets and online media to create feature placement opportunities.

b) Media tours
Few public relations techniques have more impact than face-to-face meetings with key national media. Every PR program should have a budget for at least one national media tour per year. A tour of four major U.S. cities (such as Boston, New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco) requires about 65 hours to schedule interviews and develop advance material and briefing books. Since your account manager is the person who helps drive your program strategically, it makes sense to have them accompany your spokespersons on a media tour so they can get the media’s perspective first-hand. Quality agencies often have flat, daily rates for out-of-town activities like tours and trade show support to make this item easy to budget.

c) Trade show public relations
Due to the noise level at most trade shows, we urge our clients to shy away from press conferences at those events. However, we do believe trade shows provide an excellent opportunity for you to meet face-to-face with key editors. We recommend scheduling interviews with 10 to 15 reporters per major trade show. (Smaller shows or conferences may not have that many total media in attendance, so the final number for those is relative.) The meetings can take place at a quiet corner of the booth or in a nearby conference room. Budget 45 hours for the agency to book these appointments, provide briefing materials and perform basic follow-up.

d) Speaker bureaus
One way to build awareness and increase credibility is through appropriate speaking opportunities. These need to be intelligently determined from a strategic perspective, and normally require pre-applying six months or more in advance. Being able to monitor, respond and follow up as these occur increases the likelihood of success. TI uses several research resources for this, and estimates 15 hours per month as a benchmark for a typical client.

Analyst Relations
e) Rank and evaluate industry analyst service offerings
InformationWeek once surveyed more than 250 IT executives about the value of analyst research. Respondents reported that the top two reasons companies purchase research reports are to validate IT strategies and discover best practices. Yet, 63 percent of these executives also questioned the value of the services provided by research firms. I believe the problem is that most analyst relationships lack structure and focus. The unfortunate result is that companies spend $100,000 or more on these engagements without leveraging the relationships.

Before investing six-figures in analyst research, I recommend using your agency to “analyze the analysts.” A simple analyst audit will require anywhere from 50 to 100 hours of creative time, but it could save your company tens of thousands of dollars in the process, while providing a roadmap that will help your company maximize its analyst relationships.

Once the key analysts have been identified, companies should consider embarking on an analyst tour to “try before they buy.” Your agency should schedule and attend this tour and work with you afterward to evaluate the various proposals and recommend the paid versus non-paid relationships. Again, the 40 to 50 hours required to book and attend an analyst tour is money well spent because it can save your company thousands of dollars in the long run.

f) Monthly analyst outreach
Once you’ve identified the key analysts and the correct mix of subscription services, the next step is to implement an ongoing communications program that will continue to build mind share with industry analysts you pay and those you do not. Key tactics include:

• Follow up with all analysts after the evaluation tour to gauge opinions of your company and identify upcoming conferences and research papers
• Establish paid annual relationships, depending upon budget parameters, needs, capabilities and chemistry
• Schedule executive briefings with key organizations
• Leverage paid and unpaid relationships for comments and feedback
• Schedule monthly phone calls for company executives with all A-list analysts
• Distribute copies of press releases to analysts
• Schedule face-to-face meetings with analysts at conferences and trade shows, as well as “drop-bys” when company executives travel
• Companies should budget 20 to 30 hours per month for analyst outreach.

b) Media coaching
To become comfortable not only with the media but with the message, media coaching provides an interactive workshop for technologists that provides really specific advice. These workshops are day-long seminars that force executives to focus their messages, improve their listening and speaking skills, and reinforce the power of the interview by combining important tips with examples and interactive one-one coaching. Mini-workshop refreshers can also be performed prior to big launch events or tours.

3) Writing Services
a) Press releases
These are the building blocks of any PR program and a typical two-page release requires between five to 10 hours to write and distribute to appropriate media. In today’s world, e-mail is the primary means of distribution. There are, however, still some holdouts who prefer other delivery methods.

The agency should know how editors want to receive press releases, fax v. email. Typically, we distribute 65 to90 percent of our releases via e-mail to a targeted list of reporters and editors. I also recommend using the regional circuits of BusinessWire or other services rather than the more expensive national circuits. This will save you money, while still ensuring that your releases appear on all of the major search engines, portals and online services.

b) Case studies, white papers and byline articles
Public relations programs are only as effective as the quality of the material you provide to news media and analysts. Great customer stories are always in demand, particularly ones that show how a product or service helped a company solve a mission-critical business issue. A typical 1,500-word case study or feature article will require between 20 and 30 hours to research and write, including a minimum of two revisions. Placement costs should be absorbed by the media relations budget. Photography and travel are additional charges.

c) Press kits and materials
Company background information, executive biographies and other information need to remain consistent with the messages that are being distributed. These elements are critical to providing a consistent voice for editors, reporters and analysts as they encounter post-interview questions.

d) Speech writing
As executives embark on speaking engagements, it is crucial that they continue to build themes that mirror the corporate messages. Writing, editing and preparing high quality presentation materials are essential.

4) Account services
a) Client services
Managing the flow of information from clients to agencies and directing the workflow are critical to ensuring that objectives are reached. Monitoring competitive companies and industry trade publications also help in getting your story positioned properly. There is a fine line between administering and doing, however. If you are hiring an agency to perform media relations, than account management should be a fraction of the monthly time, but it is time well spent.

b) Competitive intelligence
You might know your place in your market, but do you clearly communicate that position throughout your efforts? A market evaluation audit can help determine if your message is still appropriate for your current market situation, by comparing a number of factors, including messages and themes from competitors. Share of voice can be determined through analysis of hits and stories to provide a complete competitive landscape. This data will be analyzed with an eye towards defining differentiation, clarifying cluttered or muddy themes and recognizing message opportunities.

c) Newsletters
An increasing number of high-tech companies are opting for Web-based and e-mail-distributed newsletters to communicate with their customers and prospects. It takes about 40 hours for a typical HTML newsletter to be edited and distributed to your prospective audiences.

A Leap of Faith

Entering a new relationship with a public relations firm should be a very positive experience for both parties. If an agency is willing to work with you as a team to establish a realistic budget at the beginning of the relationship, the odds are very good that the two companies will work well together. When business partners respect and trust each other, everyone benefits. Isn’t that what building a relationship is all about?

About Mike Nikolich and Tech Image, Ltd.

Mike Nikolich is CEO of Tech Image Ltd. Founded in 1993, Tech Image is Chicago’s leading independent high-tech public relations firm. A partner in the Worldcom Public Relations Group, Tech Image provides media relations, analyst relations, media training and messaging services to business-to-business technology companies. Representative clients include Channel Intelligence, GlobalSpec, ITA Software, Language Analysis Systems and Silvon Software. Learn more at www.techimage.com , or call 1-888-4-TECH-PR.

Tech Image provides Intelligence Reports on a variety of public relations topics, including:

• Product Review Tracking
• Analyst relations
• Trade Show Public Relations and
• Global Publicity Campaigns