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Also, 85% of the journalists surveyed said that images are very important. 35% said downloadable video/audio was (very) important. 29% said embed codes with video/audio was (very) important.

When asked specifically if web content was important to them in a release, 30% said it was (very) important.  Similar to what we’ve seen in the past, 33% said a downloadable logo was (very) important.

See more images below. The report in pdf and unedited responses are available at the PwR blog. View the survey here: PwR survey of journalists

No matter whether they speak in English or Hindi, it is the confidence with which they deliver matters. On that front, our skipper Dhoni has been improving by the day and the reply that he gave after the last test against England was really apt and powerful. He firstly thanked the English team for returning for the test match after the terrorist attack and secondly sent a clear message to the world that India will not buckle under such cowardly act of terrorism. I have been watching Dhoni from close quarters for the last one year and each time I observe him, he comes out as a thorough professional when he faces the media.

Handling the media has been so important these days as mind games are being played by the opponents before or after the matches. And you need to counter them with good strategy so that they don’t affect your game or the team’s performance. Few years back when South Africa was going through a bad patch, their board quickly appointed Ravi Shastri to coach them to handle the media pressures. So that’s the kind of importance one is attaching to media relations.

Speaking to media is an art and it will only come if one is coached and given professional advice. If you are on a winning spree, the confidence will drive you to speak well and handle the media with ease. It is during crisis and failures one may loose the confidence but if you are trained by a good media coach, you will be able to battle it well and take the media with complete confidence. I finally would like to conclude that handling media and speaking to them with the right tone and message will really help the team to play the role of great statesman and ambassadors for the nation in any part of the world.

PR is most productive when the agency and client people work as a team. The ideal is a blurred distinction between the two organizations. The goals are nearly the same, only the paychecks and business cards are different. Efficient teamwork and friendships develop, with the clients relying on agencies for a full range of strategic as well as tactical communications values. The agency is free to ask all questions, including the hard or perhaps embarrassing ones, and offer help wherever and whenever needed while remembering its charter to client service.

The excuses for not executing the out-of-the-box plans previously furnished could be umpteen… “No budget, no management approvals, no marketing team approvals, too big an idea, too small an idea, now is not right time and many more”.

This one is for our Clients…. J

In most cases the plans do not move forward because there is no synchronisation between the Corporate Communications teams and the marketing teams of the Clients. I am not talking about the ad hoc activities and support provided by PR for all events and initiatives proposed by the marketing teams. I am talking about integrating PR with the corporate vision of the organisation, getting the marketing teams involved along with corporate teams to interact with the PR team. Give a sense of the budget, what is it that you wish to achieve in your annual plans in terms of recall, the involvement you are willing to give in terms of monies, energy, people and commitment to causes. And why do I ask for all of this? Since PR nowadays is not just about media plans. PR professionals and agencies are getting more and more aggressive and integrated in their approach towards how they garner Client recall and build their brands.

Every plan that is made my PR professionals are rife with ambitions for their Clients, expecting and hoping that the Client would laud, encourage, and execute the ideas that the professionals have imbued in the plans. It all starts with the Client saying; ‘I want more than cc coverage’… the PR teams do put in their entire mind to create amazing plans and then frustration seeps in as the Client keeps rejecting the ideas under the pretext of budget, timing, and non conformity with teams internally. That’s not fair, is it?!

Which is why the solution is to get all concerned teams in the Client’s organisation who are a party to giving permission for all initiatives and activities should sit with the PR team and engage in meaningful briefing, laying clear limitations, aspirations and organisation objectives and budgets. That way the PR teams can come back with executable plans and ideas that work, that click and that create the much needed boost to the brands.

Clients need to stop treating PR agencies as vendors to get media exposures… PR agencies aren’t delivery boys whom you just hand over releases and who run around the city to get media coverage. They are hard thinking, intelligent, talented professionals, who are day in and day out striving to get that extra bit of brand recall over your competitors and working along with you to build your organisation’s perception. Treat PR professionals as your brand ‘consultants’… people who make you look good in black and white… people who are putting you in pages of history and making everyone worth a read.

Give it a thought… make PR worth the while for yourself… with the right tone of briefings, knowing what is it that you want to achieve for your organisations and encouraging PR teams to think innovatively for you.

Now, I am still to come across another client who shares this opinion. We all know how our monthly dossiers often become nightmares without the big numbers. Though I try to stick to the hallowed equation, I sometimes do find myself juggling interactions and press releases which only serve the purpose of the great Indian CC Output. It’s almost funny how clients can get obsessive about these things. I’m sure PR in India has a long way to go before our clients start to acknowledge the equation, but honestly, how many of us believe in it ourselves?

As PR professionals, we know it in our heads that that PR is about two-way communication with, and building perceptions among, the target group, which most definitely requires media to maintain third-party credibility. All this jazz roughly translates to focussed communication aimed at improving/adjusting/inspiring brand-image. When the target customer reads in her favourite magazine that the latest mobile phone from the client company is a must-have luxury gizmo, many things happen at once. The reader’s awareness of the brand improves a notch; the phone registers in the mental ‘things I want’ list; the customer’s old phone gets a thought or two; the client company gains brownie points for being premium; if the client is already premium, the ‘price on request’ below the phone description adds a little to the aspiration value, improving product desirability; and so on. All of this might or might not lead to a sale but definitely adds to the branding campaign.

Of course, we could say that after years in the industry we do not need to think about the consequential process at all and that we automatically know what to do. Yeah right!! Few clients even LET agencies decide between a release and a press conference for an announcement. Let us say we go for a press conference, what do we do? We start inviting everyone on the media list, start drafting collateral for the press kits, follow-up with the media, arrange for AV, follow-up some more, conduct a recce of the venue, follow-up, prepare a briefing document, follow-up even more while the poor journalist from a small regional daily is wondering why his readers would be interested in a business alliance between two purely B2B industrial manufacturing companies! Of course, he will attend the conference because his favorite Mr. PR ‘so-and-so’ invited him and of course he will give ‘coverage’ because the same so-and-so won’t stop calling if he didn’t.

In the end, what we have is a fat dossier and a big number for the CC output, and a happy client who thinks the press conference was a huge success, and by the way, also thinks that his PR agency is a media post office.

More than convincing the clients, we need to convince ourselves of the importance of what we do, in the larger scheme of things. The value we bring to a client’s brand is not the number of clips we generate in a quarter but the real impact they create, isn’t it? The equation only makes sense because brand building is exactly what PR is meant to do in the first place. (Picture source: Dadawan)

A client is calling up the manager in the team (of course the manager refrains from picking up the call and for juniors, it’s a protocol issue) at the start of the day!! Huh,,,, this is a mock test and every body is running around in the class room (agency) hunting for answers. The best one of them all – a surprise unit test is just like an immediate client review meeting. And then the report card – you get the picture, I am sure…….

Why is it that we need to panic at every big event, which the client throws at our faces? Let me cite an example that happened with one of my colleague recently (name not mentioned on request):

Oh crap!!! Spokesperson traveling:

Kindly observe the conversation below:

Client: “__(name)__, for your information, there will be a spokesperson traveling from our global end”

Agent: “Ok. Can you provide me with the details and possibly write me a mail on this? I’ll look into it and then get back to you.”

Client’s mail: for your information, there will be a spokesperson traveling from our global end. Get back to me with a plan on this before lunch (the time is 10:30 AM currently)!!!

Agent’s reply: Hi ___

I kindly would kindly need kindly the kindly profile kindly of kindly the kindly spokesperson. The kindly date kindly of kindly the kindly travel and kindly what kindly is kindly he kindly going kindly to kindly speak kindly on kindly. (delete kindly if you want to get the meaning, kindly is used as a tactic word to please the client).

Client: He’s going to be here by the second part of last quarter of the third day of the week after this one. Still waiting for the plan OK. (Sorry, a bit of exaggeration but this is how clients make it sometimes).

Now comes the real client servicing action. The agent applies all his heart, soul, and what all is left of his mind to examines past news coverage and documents to carefully jot down the possible talking points. The main heads of the usual talking points include:

1. Investment figures
2. Spokesperson’s role in the organization
3. Acquisitions/ventures/collaborations if any
4. Future outlook of the company
5. Company effective role in community contribution.

There are many more that can be added in that list but as I said these are the main ones.

Now back to our story, after the careful assessment and evaluation of the talking points a plan is not that difficult to be carved out. So its done. The PLAN is made and presented to the almighty client for inputs & approval. Again this process reminds me of my school days …..I am sure all of still remember ‘Fill in the blanks’. The document is presented to client for him to fill in the blanks. But here is the reality. The client very conveniently fills in all the gaps and shares it with our friend. On close evaluation he finds out:

1. Investment figures: The organization was sharing the same numbers since the past 2 ½ years.
2. Spokesperson’s role in the organization: Plays an important role in the development of our friend’s misery.
3. Acquisitions/ventures/collaborations if any: IF ANY (get the picture)
4. Future outlook of the company: Given; no matter how much I try to sabotage this points image it can be used at any point of time with media.
5. Company effective role in community contribution: None what so ever considering the fact that our friend belongs to the community.

Of course he was not able to get the obvious choice ET, TOI and sadly confessed before me by saying: “Saurabh, I feel like I’ve flunked”

I admit this is a very acute case of the widespread disease CED (Client Expectation Disorder) but we all know how to handle situations. With a little bit of experience we learn to create mountain out of molehills, generate news out of nothingness.

P.S: I believe the industry is changing from the other side. I believe, as shown in signs in previous posts the client is becoming more sensible towards media and more sensitive towards the limitations of the agency.

A company wanted to sign up a particular agency. They liked the credentials, its plan, and everything was in place, except for one thing. The feedback about the company from the agency’s market survey turned out bad. No payment to vendors in time. The senior managements unimaginably treat PR as a press coverage department. The agency decided to let go of the account.

A client always wanted to talk to the top people in a PR agency, is never satisfied with any coverage, and there are faults galore with the agency. The threats kept coming – perform or perish. The top boss at the agency finally decided to meet the client. His reply to the client was – ‘Sack us if you will, but please don’t continue giving threats’. There was no sacking and the client relationship had improved drastically ever since, I heard.

These are some instances that have been happening with the PR industry I have come across recently. Should I assume that 5 years back, this couldn’t have happened? A retainer fee was everything. Now that is not enough. PR agencies are coming of age, and big ones particularly are setting the standards for the industry. Just as the clients say, there is no dearth of agencies; the agencies today say there is no dearth of clients. They want to handle only those companies that see genuine strength and believe in PR, are ethical and practice fair play with partner companies. Five years later, our clients will see what we are upto. A company refused by 3-4 agencies will have a tale to tell.

There are others. Some time back, an upcoming spa in Delhi signed up an agency, made the agency toil for 6 months – all of the pre launch, launch of its spa, and the post launch PR – and finally decided to blame the agency saying it had not been working satisfyingly. The spa company did not release the retainer fee due – all of six months. Seems like they figured out that the agency has not been performing, at the end of everything, after six months. Now they will invite for another pitch. The top agencies will drain their brains out and they will select the best. The cycle will go on, until somebody stands up, again.

“There was a young man who went by the name of Jack. Everyday he attended his daily chores like going to media rounds, doing extensive media mapping, effectively sending out extremely simple reports in the approved rocket science formats, etc. One fine day, he thought that Client Goddess has finally seen all his sincerity and hard work and she herself called him up and told him exactly what he expected.

With his trembling hands, he held on to the phone. His heart filled with delight and glee on listening to the beautiful sound in which Goddess said…Wow!!! Now that’s a front page story. She explained how she expected more out of him but still ready to relieve the pressure so that he wouldn’t have to work like an ass to gain her blessings. She gave him a story idea which would work like magic with his journalist comrades (soon to be enemies). He would be able to get front page stories and play with toys and would be pioneer, a statesman in his contemporary DNA age.”

Unfortunately for our new to the club Jack, he was unable to use this magic formula for the betterment of his environment and save his world using the marvelous story idea. Jack still had to work like an ass for this story idea to please this Client Goddess.

On numerous occasions I’ve witnessed my bosses shivering on thinking of a suitable reply to be given to the client which is always eventually based on truth…”Boss, this is not a good story idea or event, I don’t see any coverage coming out of it”. But they have unfortunately inherited a phobia or to never say ‘no’ as soon as they got into the industry. The differences is that they think they have become a Ghandivadi of the PR industry by following this practice. There are so many things that we work day in and day out without even realising the amount of time and energy positioned on something which will help us derive very very special and worthy snippets. We can do something really substantial with all our time spent on these mindless, meaningless pitching and give some real PR value to our clients.

Smash!!! I love what I wrote in the above line. It’s really good, but if only we are allowed to. Anyways, being a PR professional, I am trained to carry & boast alternatives. Let me now site some typical examples which we are regularly tangled:

1. Corporate Social Responsibility: Corporates, I am aware how important it is to practice CSR. You develop good relations with all intended target audiences. It helps you to gain a good hand with the government. Investor relations are kept in good spirit as you are contributing to the society. Consumers understand that you, out of many, think about the common man and they are happy. Yes all good but doing a CSR activity every month….I mean let somebody else be the saint. The catastrophic phenomenon has been around since 4/5 years now. Let’s see some perspective with this aspect.

In a meeting the client shares with me and my boss.

Client: “…..(name not published on request)……, we are coming up with this new thing and its very environment friendly, it would aim to teach students as well. Yes I do admit that other corporate have also moved in this stride but we’ve observed they have involved less no. of students and we are involving many more. I understand the idea is not new but we plan to invest in this for five years. So we want good coverage around this”.

Observe the responses to the info shared by the client. My thoughts on the responses and comments in bracket:

“Oh that sounds of wonderful. (Without realizing it my boss has given a new meaning to the word wonderful). I don’t think we should have a problem in implementing a strategized plan on this. Although this is not a new idea (no stone is left unturned in terms of CSR ideas), we’ll still be able to derive some coverage out of it. Why isn’t it, Saurabh?”

And that’s it,,,, my world just collapses on this last statement.

Friends please excuse the sarcasm. The point I am trying to make is about always trying to explain to your clients how important it is to practice high-scale impactful CSR otherwise it’s of no use. Ideas like teaching a couple of underprivileged kids, growing a couple of trees are always good for an individualistic value appreciation but not at all meaningful from a corporate perspective. Still I do understand the unaided situation that many of us land in with persistent clients. For those kind of clients give a suggestion to club around 2-3 CSR initiatives and turn that around into a profiling opportunity. Some columns that should be able to suffice your clients and help you are:

a. The Economic Times, Career and Business life page
b. Business Standard, Social Enterprise Page.
c. The Financial Express, Corporate Voice

2. Appointments: Another one of those highly demanded properties that our respectful clients vouch for to be an easy placement. Unless it’s a CEO or a president of a big corporate, movements and appointments are hard to be placed even with amazing media relations. It would not be surprising that one of our clients asks us to get coverage on a change in its security setup.

Trying to offer and combine the appointment news with financial numbers and investment to increase the news value might surely help derive more out of the simple appointment news.

3. Product announcements: No, I don’t mean the launch of a bike, a car, a big pharma drug. I am talking about going through the horror of launching a completely advanced GSM paper. A breakthrough in the contemporary unfortunately not covered by any paper. Sometimes this also happens. The best thing to do in these situations is target the trade media. The trick might be to convince your clients for concentrating on special relationship building meetings and not seeing it though a coverage point of view. Convince him from the more futuristic view. These meetings always help in creating a pipeline for stories.

4. Advertising and marketing campaigns: Not too long ago I was asked to give a PR plan on my client’s small sponsorship in a big rock festival. Ya, I know you are thinking, this is just impossible. No client can be this unreasonable. Well, I was among you all who think in this fashion. Now I am a PR professional. Get it. What do you do in these situations? Well nothing, you can do some industry story participation on the subject but apart from that nothing.

We should all thank the afaqs, exchange4media, indiantelevision, and indiainfoline of the world who can come for our rescue in situations like these.

5. International News: Well, at least most of our clients are sensible enough not too expect anything out of these sorts. But for some select who suffer from this phobia as well I’ll try to give an alternative. It should be relatively easy to acquire a fair amount of coverage in case of a big international collaboration or a big international corporate setting up in India, but for the rest of them, work out a regular dispatch of information to the media without pushing for coverage on it. Suggest your client to be in regular touch with the media with an informative newsletter, which would also help you to monitor and be abreast of your client’s industry.

My apologies to all who religious expect this blog’s horizon to be very serious and always giving gyaans. This post is about an opinion and how we should ideally tackle all the tricky mud holes our clients create for us. I would expect some valuable additions to it as well.

Don’t take the above statement as an exaggeration of sorts. It is a fact. There are times when we reach for a client meeting well before time and the contrary when we dread going to them. I’ve seen my boss pray for not having to attend a client meet after a flop show (Of course he tried to do it in private but I saw his folded hands unfortunately). The anxiety of explaining the outcomes of an event or a release can be similar to facing God and explaining your wrong actions (the latter is still better, believe me). However listed below are a few tips, in no particular order, that PR Professionals should try to remember in case of client meets.

1. Decide the objectives for the Meeting: Set objectives before the meeting!

One should always be focused on setting the meeting objectives. If you don’t find any reasons to do this, your meeting can shift focus and you’ll end up discussing a completely different affair & reach to a ….well no conclusion. While setting the meeting objectives one should keep in mind all things he/she wants to achieve out of the meeting.

One benefit of setting objectives for the meeting is to help you plan the meeting. The more concrete your meeting objectives, the more focused your agenda will be. A second important benefit of having specific objectives for each meeting is that you have a concrete measure against which you can evaluate that meeting. Were you successful in meeting the objectives? Why or why not? Is another meeting required? Setting meeting objectives allows you to continuously improve your effective meeting process.

2. Be well informed

Yes, anther one of those cliché gyans that you come across regularly. However this is one of those rare points that is not strictly checked on irrespective of its significance. We should always be bang on with our client’s progress in the recent times. The one thing that surely impresses the client is your knowledge/ comprehension about his business along with knowledge of the industry on a whole.

3. Be Organized

A very significant etiquette in this context is to be organized when going to a client meeting. One should be equipped with a point agenda to be discussed at a client meet. It is advisable to carry recent coverage dockets and referable handouts for the meeting. This helps us PR professional in various aspects.

The most important aspect of being a perfect PR professional is our presentation qualities. This skill sets us apart not only on an individualistic but this is a certain differential which gives PR its uniqueness. The way one presents himself/herself at a meeting sets the tone or the balance of the meeting.

4. Agenda

Provide all participants with an agenda before the meeting starts. The agenda would include a brief description of the meeting objectives & a list of the topics to be covered. When you send the agenda, you should include the time, date and location of the meeting and any background information participants will need to know to hold an informed discussion on the meeting topic. What’s the most important thing you should do with your agenda? Follow it closely!

5. Be sensible, be safe

In my school days, I still remember my teacher repetitively advising me to ask as many questions as possible (although my teacher’s wish went unfulfilled, as my comprehension of her subject failed to support me), this rule however does not apply to our industry. Internally one has the complete liberty to be as naive as per our wish. However incase of a client meeting one should not speak until & unless it’s a noteworthy comment or suggestion. We set an impression on people by our comments. I am not advising anyone to go in a shell and not participate at all but just that when one does choose to participate he/she should be equipped with all the facts before addressing any topic.

6. Anticipate questions as if you anticipate crisis

The first lesson of crisis management is anticipation. There are times when client meets have to be visualized as crisis and have to be dealt with accordingly. Anticipate all possible queries and issues to be addressed in meeting. Do this exercise while going for the meeting. Yes follow this routine while on the way to the client’s office.

One should never give importance to specific meetings which only includes high officials from client side. Every meeting is equally important and one should always be prepared for them. So, we should follow this exercise for every meeting.

7. POA: Don’t conclude any meeting without deciding on the plan of action

Don’t finish any discussion in the meeting without deciding the action on it

Before leaving the meetings make sure that the client is satisfied with the discussion. Also make sure that the points or plan of action discussed is properly understood with both the parties. There should be no ambiguity with any point discussed in the meeting.

‘Time is Money’ the golden rule which I find to be coherent for our industry. We should be able to take action on the points discussed as quickly as possible. No matter how easy going or non demanding the client is documents in form of MOMs (Minutes of the meetings) should always reach to the client after every meeting.

These were the few pointers for client meetings, although debatable and certainly extendable.