Choosing a PR agency is a really important decision. So many things to think about! Do they understand my business sector? Are they creative enough for what I want? Will they make me look good? Have they got the right contacts? Are they tough enough to get the best out of my boss? Can I stick them in front of my board if the going gets tough? Do they do social media as well as press and blogger relations? Do they have a philosophy? Is it worth the paper it’s written on? Can I afford them? Will I just end up with junior folk on my account and never see that MD again? It’s a jungle out there. 

There are usually two stages to selecting an agency. First the credentials stage and then the pitch. Obviously from a client point of view you want to choose the most appropriate agency for what you have in mind. Which puts the onus on you to pick the right agencies to pitch for your business. 

Check The Credentials 

The best advice I can give you is to do your homework on selection. There’s no substitute for talking to industry bodies, relevant journalists in your sector who will have pretty accurate views of who does a good job, reading trade press and using a service such as Hollis Find a PR Agency. Once you’ve done that, ask the agencies you’ve selected to send you their credentials, tailored to why they could or should work for you. This should allow you to pick agencies that are capable of doing the job. 

The Pitch Process 

But are the agencies credible too? That’s where the pitch comes in. The pitch process should be about getting the best out of agencies and seeing some proof that they understand your business. You might get to meet some great people that you can work with and whose approach and creative response to your brief will achieve what you’ve asked. So try to give agencies a pitch process they can use to display their wares. 

Not Too Long 

We agencies hate long drawn out pitch processes, with many rounds and people involved. It gets us worried that clients are not prepared to take their own decisions. We worry that working with you will be working in committee. While we don’t mind that, it does set a precedent. Also time is money… and we are in business…  

Not Too Short 

That said, we also hate very short pitch processes. It was the vogue for a while to fire off a brief to agencies and expect them to pitch in three to five working days. Now I don’t know what it’s like in every agency, but in most of them we’ve got existing clients to look after and we want the time to do a professional job for them – and in your pitch. I love pulling long overnight and weekend shifts, eating pizza and quaffing ice cold Peroni at my desk as much as the next PR, but the more time you can give us to get under the skin of your brief the better. 

Have decision-makers present 

We do like to think that the people making the decision will be involved in the process and in the room. A financial services company I once pitched to told us when we weren’t successful that the reason we hadn’t been chosen was because the CEO hadn’t heard of us. Everything else we did was bang on. Either our contact was finding it hard to give us a real reason or that was going to be a terrible relationship. Equally if your Grand Fromage delegates the whole process to you, doesn’t engage in it, turns up to the pitch and then wonders why we haven’t second guessed her thoughts… it can be a tiny bit dispiriting. 

Procurement and profit 

By all means get your procurement guys involved in the pitch process. We actually like talking to procurement guys. At least we do if they have bought marketing services before. It allows us to set and agree a fair price for what we do. Procurement guys mostly get that we make money by selling time and expertise to you – which we need to make an honest profit – and that we want to be recompensed in one way or another for effectively lending you money. 

It also helps you to work out whether we will make any money from your business. Because you don’t want a deal that screws the agency. The agency will spend the life of the arrangement trying to claw back some profit rather than over-delivering on your business. 

Work out exactly what you want 

Work out beforehand what you want from the winning agency. And stick to it. One pitch process we went through specifically told us not to undertake a stakeholder audit. The winning agency did an audit and this was given as the differentiating issue that won them the business. The potential client’s photo was on the office dart board within the hour. 

Be available to the agency 

Make yourself available to agencies in between briefing them and the pitches. What you actually want to see is three or four really good pitches which give you a tough choice to make. It’s a waste of your time if you make it so difficult for the agency to understand your strategy and what you want that they don’t nail it in the pitch. You want that to be a given so that you can then choose an approach and creatives which meet that strategy. 

Be clear about how much you want to spend 

Have a budget and tell the agencies what it is. At least tell us what you would realistically like to spend. We can then design what we think is a decent programme for that money and give you some further ideas against an “ideal” budget. Too many businesses come into PR pitches hoping against hope that they can afford the agencies that they are seeing. They then express surprise and disappointment that the agency can’t deliver the moon on a stick for next to nothing. This wastes everybody’s time. 

So here’s a process we think will work...  

Step One: Research. Talk to journalists, industry insiders and spend some time researching agencies through their websites and social media feeds. 

Step Two: Call a reasonable number of agencies – a dozen will be more than enough - and ask to see their credentials to support your business needs. Set them the specific question at this stage about why they should work for you. This will help you work out who really looks as if they will know their stuff. Get them to send the replies. You really don't have time to meet 12 agencies. And the agencies won't want to be one of 12. Bad odds. 

Step Three: Narrow down the list to five, based on what you’ve seen in the credentials. Ask to see each of the five for a brief one hour meeting. This is called a "chemistry" meeting. Horrible word, but the idea is to work out whether or not you like the cut of their jib. Set them one quick challenge to see how they think and their creative approach to that challenge. Try to work out at this stage whether you think you could work with them. If not... don't waste any more of your or their time. 

Step Four: Take three or four agencies (maximum) through to a pitch stage. If you see more than four you’ll be bored and exhausted by the end of the process. Set the agencies a full brief – how will they support your business for the next 12 months and more broadly over three years? Give them as much information as you can. Agencies will sign an Non Disclosure Agreement to protect your business. 

Step Five: From start to finish on the pitch stage give agencies a minimum of 10 working days. But no more than 15 because, let’s face it, you want to choose an agency and get going. Half way through the process make yourselves available for a meeting to answer any questions. Try to make sure your big cheese will be there, so that she gets some exposure to the agency and gets to own the briefings. 

Step Six: Allow 90 minutes in total for the pitch. Devise some sort of scoresheet in advance, based on the brief you gave. Get everyone in the room to score the agencies against it and pick the agency that meets the brief best. (Unless of course you think you couldn’t possibly work with them for some reason; above all you want an agency that you can actually work with.) 

Step Seven: Finally. Do tell the unlucky agencies why they didn’t get the gig. And do tell them the real reason. If the MD is an insufferable bore he needs to know…

Nick Clark is MD of Consolidated PR, one of the UK’s leading digitally integrated corporate and consumer PR agencies.

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