You run a pretty tight marketing budget. You need to see quantifiable value out of your contractors and agencies, especially when it comes to PR. Yes, relationships aren’t quantifiable, but as PR and social media become more integral to other areas of your business, there is more pressure on you to show ROI for your department’s activities. You need a PR agency that can partner with you, who understands the social landscape, and can help you beyond media relations 101.
I’ve written in the past about my thoughts around PR and social media:
- Social media will not kill PR, but it does expose industry weakness
- Social media and enterprise IT demand gen - a wrong fit?
- Bloggers vs. PR - the broken record continues to skip
No, not trying to get you to read my stuff, but merely offering a little perspective as to what I am doing what I am doing now. And what is that? A survey. I’ve made some claims over the last four months about what clients need from agencies and what agencies I believe “get it” in terms of social media. From my perspective, having been an agency and internal PR person who manages agencies, I also have strong opinions about how PR agencies should be stepping up as business consultants versus merely serving as dial-for-dollars phone pitchers.
The survey is seven questions long and is designed for marketing and business decision-makers who have hired or plan to hire a new agency. It takes into account what is important to clients in terms of social media and also puts some of the onus on the agencies. I want to be able to write about:
- What clients really want
- Which agencies really are getting it
- Which agencies clients are looking to hire
The resulting blog post — to be published in early 2009 — will be based solely on the trends indicated in the data. No identifying data will be requested of any of the respondents but proactive commentary on agency experience is always welcome and can be sent to the email below.
What are you waiting for? Here’s the survey. Data collection has been extended to Jan. 15, 2009.
