How an Essex PR agency can help you pick the best your business

From coffee to clients, every company wants the best for their business. But investing in a quality PR agency is crucial. If you pick the wrong business relationship it could have detrimental effects on your brand, including financial losses and a damaged reputation. 

Reputation has always been important in business. When damaged, it can be extremely hard to fix. Therefore, making sure yours is as solid as it can be is vital in case you were to ever run into trouble. Public relations can go a long way in building a company’s credibility. Once utilising this method of marketing, you are sure to leave with a concrete reputation. This will put you in good stead when it comes down to the longevity of your business.

PR is a great way to bring attention to your business, and an agency can help you to develop whatever the message is that you want to get across. They also help a business to perform better and identify their target audience to achieve optimum results. Who doesn’t strive for that?!

Investing in a PR agency can allow you to break into new industries and engage with a wider audience. Our Essex PR agency, VerriBerri, want to help you pick the best of the best and give you some top tips for deciding who is best to help you to achieve your goals for your business.

Now, we’ve all heard the term ‘PR’ but how many of us really know what that means? Or more for that matter, what it really entails? Well, PR is when a company uses the resources around them to try and reach their target audience. For instance, the most traditional form of PR involves media relations. But, as many things do, PR has progressed a lot through the years. This has meant the incorporation of digital technology has allowed the horizons to broaden. When looking into implementing PR nowadays, you are met with many other options. For instance, appearances on TV, radio, podcast, and more recently, influencer marketing too.

Making traction with PR without the help of existing connections is near impossible. Therefore, if you’re looking to get a PR campaign of the ground, you’re going to need the help of professionals. Our Essex PR agency has spent years networking and building concrete relationships within the journalism industry. From here, we have been successful in getting our clients published in quality sources such as The Metro and Cosmopolitan.

Finding potential openings and pitching takes time. This means that PR can be an incredibly lengthy process. Without the help of an agency, making any noise through public relations is likely to take even longer. With our help, you have more time to spend on what you do best. Allowing us to take the lead will mean far less stress for you in the long run.

Reviews

Take it from us, PR agencies rely very, very heavily on reviews. Their reputation will dictate the demand for their agency. A great place to start is on Google. It’s estimated that 90% of clients of a business say positive reviews have influenced their decisions when purchasing or contacting someone, and online research is the most trusted source of information about a business for 65% of internet users.

You must look at how responsive the agency that you’re looking at working with were. Do the reviews say they were excellent communicators? Were they organised? Did they provide their clients with the results that they were looking for? PR should be about building a relationship with consumers and providing foundations that ultimately will lead to a friendship with your PR agent and you. 

For any business, their online presence should be one of their most important objectives to them. Managing and ensuring its excellent will bring your business many advancements. For example, it will bring more business opportunities, a better selection of prospective employees and a higher company value. So, do your research!

Use of Social Media

First and foremost, is the PR agency posting on social channels regularly? If not, then that’s a big red flag. Anyone working in the PR world should know that consistency is key. Posting regularly is essential for a PR agency to beat off competitors and showcase their work with recent clients and businesses. You have to question; if they aren’t inspired enough to create regular content for themselves, how will they manage your business?

Social media can act as a home for reviews too. Leaving a comment on their LinkedIn page which explains how good (or bad, for some) your PR agency was will also help you to decide if they are worth investing in or not. Note, be careful of fake reviews!

Our Essex PR agency ensures that we post often on social media whilst giving you the information that you need to decide whether we’re right for you (we usually are!). Whether this be posting content on our Instagram page or story or updating our LinkedIn page to showcase to other businesses what it is that we are doing, we are always undertaking one!

For the PR industry in particular, posting regularly is key. If the company that you’re looking at isn’t, then what’s to say they’re contacting clients and reaching out frequently? These types of connotations will glue themselves to the business which is why they must use social media regularly to reap the benefits of posting often. It will increase their brand awareness and visibility and retain customer interest! So, foolish not to do so, right?

Values and specialities

Having values will help you get to know a bit more about the business. It will provide you with guidance for whether they are the right agency for your business and will help you achieve the results that you are setting out to achieve. 

Here at VerriBerri, we are very passionate about values. Look at what theirs are. Do they seem more customer or money orientated? It will be fairly easy to see what they believe in from their about us page (or should be). Of course, no business on their website is going to act money driven. They are going to explain how they are the best for you. But look at who they have worked with and go back to see what the reviews say. Do they have a testimonials section on their website? Have they made it easier for you to see what their reviews are like? These are some signs that you can be asking yourself when deciding which PR agency is best for you. 

As simple as this might sound, make sure you look at what they are best at! Our Essex PR agency specialise in a variety of areas, such as construction and food and drink, partly due to the fact that we have been running for over eleven years. But look at what their expertise are in. If for example you run a skincare business, you may want to find a PR agency which has a speciality or lead in that field. It’s this time of research which will help you to achieve maximum results. 

Why not VerriBerri?

We are a well-established, award winning Essex PR agency. Based in Maldon, we have a team of 16 and offer a flexible approach to PR and tailor our work to help you achieve amazing results. The fact that you’re searching how to find the perfect PR agent most likely means you’re looking to contact one, so why not us?! Let us help you achieve your goals and build a relationship with the team here. We have an open-door policy so if you do want to pop-in, feel free! Or if preferred, give us a call on 01377 386 850.