In PR agency workings, client servicing experts would talk about going out for lunches with clients and many other hi-funda things when asked about the best ways to get pally with your client. I won’t go into such advanced details, but focus on two simple day-to-day client contact mediums for an executive or a manager - the phone and the email. What’s the big deal, you’d asked.

Perhaps there’s no big deal. But given that most of the smaller agencies in India (and even some of the big ones) do not have a standardised system of client servicing manual, it’s important for the young PR professionals to know the advantages and disadvantages of both these contact mediums.

Phone -

1. Works well if the client contact is manageable and is the friendly type. You can explain issues and things in proper and in length over the phone than on email.

2. One disadvantage is that you don’t have any written record if things go wrong or the client suddenly turns around.

Email -

1. Many of us in our earlier years tend to think getting into a mobile phone chit-chat everyday with the client will break the ice and help get into a smooth client-agency relationship. Not true for some kinds of clients. If the client contact is the hard-to-please type with unreasonable expectations, make sure your correspondence is more on the mail, copied to his/her boss and yours. On every mail. Why so? Because on the phone, you are more likely to get gobbled up with no very less room for negotiations. For example, if the client contact calls in the morning and asks you to draft a case study and provide it to him/her by the end of the day, demand that she/he send you an email on that. I think most of the unreasonable client demands are done on the phone, hardly on the email. Well, I don’t have any stats to prove it though.

2. Disadvantage is that email is time consuming (writing, sending, receiving, reading), and many clients in particular sectors are not that comfortable with the emailing business.

What do you say? Any more tips. Please share on the comments.

Some of the best brains in the PR industry today have no formal qualification for doing their job. They hold no diploma from any communications institute nor any management certificate. But when it comes to PR strategy and execution, organizations seek them out. What is it that they do? Do they have some practical lessons that can become a part of every institute’s curriculum? I could think of five such points a PR school could adopt to make their students ‘future ready’. They are listed below, in no particular order. And if you are studying at an institute this information might be useful before you start job hunting.

1. ‘Presentation Skills’ – One of the most important weapons in any PR pros’ arsenal. You are judged by how you speak and present your ideas. Clients and colleagues form lifelong impressions within five seconds of you uttering the first sentence. In fact once my boss had whispered to me in an ‘X Files’ kind of tone: “They are always watching you.” Therefore before you accept your diploma, ensure your presentation and public speaking skills are top notch.
   
2. ‘P2P Networking’ – Here PR students have an unfair advantage over others. If they look around in their communications institute they will see editors, senior reporters, special correspondents of the future learning the ropes in the journalism classes. Right now they are approachable and ready to be friends. Ten years hence you will just read their by-lined article or see them on the prime time news. So start making right friends right now.
   
3. ‘What to do and what not to say’ – As a PR consultant, you are in touch with company heads and senior management, and there’s a ‘certain’ behaviour expected from you. This may include how to handle difficult questions, how not to offend people, how to shake hands, how to initiate and carry on a polite conversation, how not to get unnecessarily provoked etc. It sometimes takes years to master the art but the sooner we make a beginning, the better it is.
   
4. ‘Dress up and play the part’ – A PR consultant inspires confidence in her clients. They seek her advice and trust her judgement. Again, this is a skill honed over years but you can start immediately by dressing up the part. Always be aware of the silent signals you give about your personality by the way you dress up. I once heard an industry veteran say: “Before you pass out of your institute, ensure you have at least two business suits in your wardrobe.”
   
5. ‘Sell yourself, gracefully’ – Promote yourself and do it with style. For example, even as a student you can share your business card at formal occasions. It can carry your name, contact details and institute address. Learning early how to effectively use sites like Linkedin.com is also an asset that will go a long way.

I am sure there are institutes that already have these lessons in their curriculum but there are others who can think about them. After all a little practical work never did anyone any harm.

If you are looking at getting your self involved with the social media marketing. These 7 Cs should come in handy!!

C #1 - Context

First you need to understand the context that you will be dealing with. This could be in the form of any social media platform. But before you start engaging with them, you need to understand who they are and more importantly what is the motivation that is binding them together, socially. Example could be pure passion for technology or Bollywood or even communication that has led one individual to pursue on the path of blogging.

C #2 - Communicate

Intention to communicate - if you do not have a intention, then you might as well. Just do a cut, copy, paste job and spam the comments section of the bloggers. That is it, then your brand is at the wrath and  mercy of the bloggers. Do not try to push your marketing messages across in the social media, it might just do more harm than good.

C #3 - Conversation

You need to have a conversation , with your fellow human beings even online. My belief is that there was a time on the internet when people use to be faceless and anonymous and they use to take full advantage of it. But now these are the same people who have realised that they are not being able to handle multiple personalities. They are the same human beings. Just try to talk to them, even just greet them, they will be friends.

C #4 - Content

What does not work on the Internet is a copy. We need to be the original content providers for what we are trying to engage the Internet users into. If we copy and they find out, then our reputation online is scarred! The other element to the content is that we need to have contextually relevant content or else again, we will be seen as spammers!! The rule is customise your messages according to the motivation of the individuals that make the communities or groups on the various social media platform.

C #5 - Create

One of the complains that have been with clients is that communications consultants are not proactive enough. Here on these multiple channels of social media, they have the endless possibilities to create original content that is being provided to them by their clients and not only prove that they are proactive, but the original content can be used (hint) in combination of text, audio, video, graphical images, animation, pictures to benefit the clients. Don’t want to actually, boost ourselves, but we do not have any form of 30-second barrier, we need not have a limitations in our word length (copy). We have the power to inform, influence and impress with the power of words.

C #6 - Collaborate

All our management gurus have spoken about team building exercises. Here we have a platform not only build, but also to maintain the relationships that have been fostered over each and every social media platform. Technology gives us the opportunity to collaborate and enhance our relationships virtually. Relationships could be built on social platform based common interests and business platforms based on professional experience or expertise that one has.

C #7 - Contacts

Contacts - This may be one of the result that you will achieve in the process of your social media marketing effort. You would enjoy being a part of the wise world where knowledge sharing and problem solving are the things to do (TTDs) on a daily basis. This is the element that builds up the social support that you receive even from the online world, which helps individuals at the need of the hour in taking action at both personal front as well as professional!!

These 7 Cs have been the culmination of observation, experience, and research in the field of social media marketing over the past 10 months. If you have any more Cs or for that matter any element that you can think of that I have missed, just let me know!!

I chanced upon an interesting format of a press release. There was no longer the ’so and so company/ person today announced…’. sentence in the opening para of the release. The content was simple and to the point. The spokesperson quotes were not merged into the rest of the content as one long story. Instead they came in bullets under their own section titled ‘Quotes’. There was a list of key points highlighted in another section called ‘Quick Facts’.

This was a format of one of the press releases issued by the Ontario government that I happened to see quite by chance browsing through my Del.icio.us subscriptions (thanks to Boyd’s post).

Now what is so interesting? While the standard opening sentence of press releases have been omitted in many press releases by government organisations and NGOs in India and it’s not new, how the Ontario Government placed their quotes and the Quick Facts were new (at least to me).

Is this just a good example of a social media news release? Or can we replicate the same for our press releases that we issue to the traditional media?

Pros: Content is to the point and well segmented that helps reading easily. One can notice the key points quickly without going through the entire document.

Cons: Journalists have to redo the draft. So if you are looking for a time-crunched editor who will quickly cut a portion of your release and put it into tomorrow’s paper, then this is not the ideal format.

What do you say? This is how one of them looked like:

ASSOCHAM yesterday released a report on the Indian PR industry, which came as a bit of a surprise. I though they aptly called it a ‘random’ survey. It came out of nowhere.

On one hand, this report is a positive development with industry associations now starting to conduct studies on the PR industry. PR researchers have been yearning for a PR industry report and this seemed like one that authenticated a lot of trends and issues that we in the industry are witnessing and discussing about.

And then before I completed my smile, a conspicuous figure in the report attracted my attention. ASSOCHAM has boldly put the size of the Indian PR industry at USD 3 bn currently. While I would have loved to believe this figure and bask in the glory of being part of a fast growing industry, I have my doubts. Are we really that big? A USD 3bn means around INR 12,000 crores. And that is a huge amount.

From the not-so-perfect finger-counting that we do usually, the PR consultancy business in India is supposed to be around INR 150-200 crores only. We have around half a dozen ‘big’ PR agencies that rope in the majority, read 70-80%, of the revenues for the industry. Each can have a revenue of around INR 12-15 crores with the highest going to around INR 20 crores from pure PR fee (not calculating the expenses). Even if you calculate the expenses, the total revenue of the biggest PR firm is supposed around INR 40 crores. The rest perhaps bring in a just as much as one or two combined of these ‘big’ agencies.

Let’s do some more guess work. What could be the total PR spend by the organised corporate say in the top 1000 companies in India through one or the other agency or directly? Can we quote a figure of around INR 500 crores. Add around INR 125 crores from the PR spends by the unorganised sector in mini cities. Would even all these combined reach that ASSOCHAM figure of USD 3 bn?

Or is there something else that I am not aware of in the industry, I would definitely love an explanation into that figure.

Other key findings from the report:

1. Growing opportunity cost in PR industry is one reason for constant job shuffles

2. Over 90% PR professionals come in at the entry level with enthusiasm and passion for their work but within a year shift to greener pastures

3. Brand building and image management are emerging as key areas where corporates seek services of PR firms to enhance visibility and promote services/ products/ top management

4. Majority of PR professionals confirmed that during the economic boom, huge competition emerged for brand building as a result of which PR agencies are in demand and quoting high market driven prices for services

5. PR sector registered growth of 22-25% in last few years which further went up to 32% in 2007 and by 2010, size of PR industry is expected to grow to more than $6 billion

6. Indian PR industry comprises 1200-1500 agencies with manpower strength of 30,000 to 40,000

7. In terms of vertical markets, healthcare is the fastest-growing sector; however, public sector, environment and corporate social responsibility are emerging as growth areas for PR

8. Overriding concern of industry is skills shortage; almost all agencies are hiring, a trend that is indicative of growth, and some are looking outside the PR industry to bring in new skills

9. Although there are thousands of small agencies and individual consultants serving very local markets, larger agencies are forging partnerships across the globe to meet demand from clients

10. Retainer fee on an average can be anywhere between Rs2.5 to Rs 5 lakh

11. Reasons for high attrition could be the temptation of moving to the higher pay master; leadership crisis within the industry; inability of PR outfits to meet evolving needs of companies/ clients and to understand the dynamics of the present-day market place

Read media reports on the study here: The Hindu, Mint, IndiaInfoline

Much have been discussed about PR agencies’ yearning desire to protect their intellectual properties they share with a potential client during a pitch process. Typically the problem starts when a company starts inviting say 15 PR agencies for a pitch, ask for rounds of presentations to finally select one agency. This sounds ideal from a hiring company’s point of view. they get to select the best agency and gets tons of free ideas and tips for their communications requirements. But for the rest of the 14 agencies that didn’t get selected, imagine the time and resources wasted.PR agencies have not been able to make much headway into addressing this issue. Earlier a post on Open RFPs and a reader commented that charging a pitch fee could be a solution. The comments is as follows:

RFPs which look at the PR consultancy’s understanding of the business environment a client is operating in is a good idea. As far as RFPs with ideation are concerned, Consultancies should ask for a pitch fee which if the account is won by the consultancy can be adjusted against the retainer, and if not, it would be fee earned for work done. Putting this into practice will also enable PR consultancies to gauge the seriousness behind an RFP and clients will also understand that for PR consultants time is money!

It would be great to see clients apply the same methodology towards their advisors such as KPMG/PwC and the like.. surely they would not put forth a strategy without agreeing on fees and signing on the dotted line!

I couldn’t agree more. I think it is high time there is a serious discussion on whether PR agencies should start charging clients pitch fees. One factor that seem to have work against this is the intense competition in the PR market and agencies feel that if they are the only one to ask for a pitch fee, they might lose out on important RFPs. This could be addressed if PR associations like PRCAI and PRSI take this pro-actively and if some of the bigger agencies start charging. That could be a start.

On a realistic note, I know it’s easier said than done. Unlike the ad industry, there are no ‘INS accreditation’ tag that agencies would fear of losing. So nobody would listen one another. But there is no harm dreaming.

I would love to hear what some of the industry leaders say about this.

Almost all of us in PR business these days are facing budget blues. While the conference rooms are remaining empty waiting for the press, our mailboxes are full of media requests for pre/post budget comments waiting for us to press the forward or reply buttons. Self-proclaimed Management Guru, Shayar, Rabdipati and incidentally our Railway Minister Lalu presented the not at all required railway budget and ruined one of my required media conferences. You know what? Many of these politicians affect our life knowingly or unknowingly for the worst. They block the roads while they travel; sometimes even force the pregnant ladies to give birth to children on their way to hospital and stop the ambulances carrying critically injured accident victims too! Enough of professional politicians but the politicians in our profession are no different. They also tend to get inspired by these cattle-feed eating and effigy burning breed and make our life miserable.

Mumbai is getting hot these days and the hotel opposite to my office is getting ready to host a wedding of one of the top politician’s son and they are covering the entire approach road with ‘shamiyana’ for their VVIP guests. I wonder how come all such humble servants of public have all the money in the world to spend on lavish weddings and parties but don’t have a single paisa to donate to poor and needy. Sometimes I also wonder that how come some of our politicians in the profession have all the money in the world to take client out for dinner in one of the best five star hotels of the city, but wouldn’t have money to give a loan of just five thousand to a needy office boy for his daughter’s admission!

I was talking to one of my dear friends (and incidentally a client) last afternoon and she mentioned to me about her past experience with one of India’s (in)famous agencies and equally notorious senseless (but sen-visible and invisible!) head of the branch. How he played Peter against the Paul and took credit for every good deed done by the team and passed on blame for each of his mistakes to the juniors. The list is endless and I don’t want you to get carried away just like I did, while I was talking to her. But honestly, my dear reader – do we really need such people in our profession? Why do we have such wrong people at right places? What is it? Is it destiny or their ability to play the right cards at right moments?

I am not saying that we don’t have such politicians across industries, we have enough of them. I have seen them. I have interacted with them. But in an industry where the only capital you can have is human, why such inhuman behaviour? Why do you have to be a lazy brainless monster that likes some species and doesn’t like other? C’mon ladies and gentleman! We have enough battles to fight before we find our rightful place under the sun. We need soldiers and warriors. We need young blood to come and join the forces! Don’t give such a bad name to PR that people move away from us and join others.

Hey my dear God, I hope (high hopes!) this war-cry will serve as a wakeup call for some of those politicians and bring in the much needed change in their behaviour rather than converting many of their followers into bloodsucking vampires. Just like them. Amen!

I would be happy to receive calls from CEOs and top bosses clarifying their position on this post. Confidentiality will be maintained. Just as I did, when my post on Vikas’s problem flashed on our blog, I got as many as seven calls from agency heads wondering whether I was referring to his or her agency!

So you are planning to hire an agency for your company’s social media outreach initiatives? Creating a blog, or a social networking site? Easy. An annual plan, aligned with your overall communication goals? Then it becomes tricky. The social media agencies scenario in India is sadly still in its infancy.

I decide to put down my thoughts on this after seeing a good round-up by Gaurav. It made me ponder a bit. He wrote

The Indian players offering social media marketing services can broadly be divided into three categories:

- Digital advertising agencies offering social media marketing services with a focus on virals, social network apps, social media campaigns etc.

- Public relations agencies/ practitioners offering social media services with a focus on online reputation monitoring and social media outreach etc.

- Prominent bloggers offering, basically, corporate blogging consulting services and workshops.

He has also listed down a few companies that are today engaged in providing social media outreach programmes for its clients. Now when somebody looks at this list, he might wonder which category is best suited for his company. My not-so-perfect take on this is simple:

There’s a media, and there are ways to leverage it for a corporation. In the traditional setup, a corporation would hire an advertising agency to buy ad space on that media and hire a PR firm to engage with the editorial of that media publication. I suppose it wouldn’t be so drastically different when it comes to the social media.

A digital advertising agency today would primarily look at creating blog banners, websites, and applications, while a PR 2.0 agency would look at engaging with relevant bloggers to spread its client’s messaging, and participate in social networking sites and engage with the end consumers.

Both have their weaknesses. While a digital advertising agency might not have the expertise to engage continuously with a client’s target audience, a PR 2.0 agency would lack the technical skills required to say perhaps create a Facebook application.

Now as a corporation, you would probably want to hire a firm that is good in providing both the services.  Why have two different service providers? As PR agencies have been handling your communications programs with other media, you might perhaps want to work with them and combine your traditional media approach with the new media. But is that so simple?

This can be one reason why I could imagine a lot of partnerships between digital advertising agencies and PR 2.0 firms in the near future. This might work out in a way where PR agencies are outsourcing the technical part of the job to application developers and website creators while they take care of the messaging and maintaining a particular property with the target audience.

Also it is interesting to note how PR agencies  are ramping up their processes to offer social media outreach services to their clients. An improvement from my last post - dare I say

Apart from Fleishman Hillard and Edelman that Gaurav mentioned in his post, we have  Weber Shandwick starting its social media division Screengrab in India. Then we have 2020 Media, Redifussion PR, Adfactors PR, and Genesis Burson Marsteller starting their own.

So when all these are happening, the biggest hurdle would be lack of good manpower - professionals who know how to handle the communications of a client as well as understand the social media well. That goes for the another post. Till then let’s wait and watch and smile a bit. What’s you take? Leave a comment.

There is a woman behind every successful man and I am no exception. The only exception is that I have so many of them. Now, I don’t want to take names here, otherwise some of them may even complain about they not being featured in the list and the one about whom I am going to write, may have some questions. So, I am playing it safe – just like Rahul ‘Dependable – Wall’ Dravid.

Well, let me tell you about the one who is right here, right now. Last evening when I was working on this post, my wife asked me what am I going to write about? I explained her the post I was working on. She wasn’t very happy and asked why do I have to be so boring this Thursday? If I have the ability to do something exciting and different (I love to hear such things from her!!), why don’t I play along and write in my usual Dhoni style!? Silly point, well taken!

Yesterday, IPL has ‘sold’ its players. You know what? When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a cricketer and even enrolled myself into some cricket academy run by an ex-cricketer. But my bad luck and Sachin’s good luck that we switched places - he opted for cricket fancies and I opted for wicked frenzies. Though, I am not yet amongst the ‘iconic players’, I am no different than ‘Marquee players’ who went under hammer yesterday.

Look at similarities I have with MSD or Yuvi. While they play for IPL & BCCI, I play for my organisation and clients. If they are match winning players, I am also a ‘pitch’ winning player! If they are good fielders, I do better fielding for clients & media. My running between meetings is as good as their running between the wickets. They go for presentations ceremonies, so do I. They give credit to the ‘boys’ for winning, so do I. They get bad press, so do I. The sword of perform for perish always hangs on their head, so is on mine.

There are many more similarities but, when it comes to money, fame & other such ‘worldly’ possessions – I don’t even dare talk about it.

But there is a light at the end of tunnel. Ladies & Gentlemen! May I have your attention please. It gives me a great pleasure to announce our new franchisee called IPL (Industrious PR Lads) and Tushar is the first player on sale. We are in the process of signing up more players (entries are welcome – ladies are also welcome, we believe in equal opportunities) and I am inviting bids for my services. The base price has been decided and will be unveiled to the pre-qualified bidders. The pre-qualification documents are available on request and can be obtained by sending a request on editor@indiaprblog.com. I am ready to be taken away by the highest bidder, Shah Rukh? Priety? Mallya? are you reading our blog? I am waiting to get ‘sold’.

Happy IPL to all of us!

PS: We are open for Private Treaties as well.

Howzzat!?!

It’s the time of the week again and I am back at drawing board ready to paint the picture with keyboard and fill it with colors of my thoughts and imagination of my love for PR. This week, I missed many exciting moments by not being available on my GoogleTalk, not being regular on my Facebook and not updating my Twitter feed due to extreme working conditions. While one of my clients is busy launching special products for Valentine’s Day, another one is trying to release a special movie for the day. In all these, only God knows what would happen to my Valentine. I think Valentine never comes well in time! Well, all these ‘you love me or not days’ have become marketing gimmicks and the real love have been lost somewhere. I think for a ‘real’ human everyday is a valentine day and every day is an occasion to express. You don’t need a greeting card company to remind that you care for your mother or love your sister! Do you?

We create stories. We create perceptions. We sell greeting cards, credit cards, loyalty cards, this card, that card and what card! Where are we? Do we get the real love we are looking for? Why can’t PR be a first choice of career when it comes to corporate career? Why can’t we demand what is right and not settle for whatever is left? Can you imagine buying a product from a company who is not in your ‘seven seconds’ frame? So, what are we doing? Do I resort to violent jumps like a certain Mr. Left alone from the clan and his Vanar Sena is doing or indulge in to oral porn like Mr. Never going to die lion! You need to do something. I need to do something. We all need to do something.

Why can’t we come out of this schizophrenic behavior and demand our rightful space under the sun? Does Company’s business strategy need to be different from a PR strategy? Look at PR. What does it do? We all know the answer. Many of the world’s most successful companies have great PR professionals as the CEOs. The better you are at managing public relationships, the better you would be at managing the company’s stock in the market.

I was reading somewhere that PR has a unique advantage of being the most flexible communication solution available. In my personal opinion, PR professionals or consultancies should play a lead role and help the board choose the right reputation strategy. We should help organizations to devise the complete ‘mindset neutral’ communication strategy to help them achieve their business objectives.

So, where is the problem? The problem is that PR lacks professionalism. It lacks the vision and intellectual authority. We must work towards it in a planned manner. Look at the advertising industry. They have done it systematically and made sure that whenever a company is seeking any marketing or communication advice they come to advertising agencies. They have invested in building a perception by doing various structured PR activities and what have we done. Our own PR bodies are fighting with each other and many of them exist only in some CEO’s cabins! We need some champions to come forward and claim that positioning which people like Prasoon Joshi or Piyush Pandey created for them in advertising or Rajeev Karwal and Sunil Alagh created in marketing. I want to be known as Tushar Panchal of PR, is there anyone else? And, my little tiger is humming a tune in his sweet little voice, “Tum Chalo to Hindustan Chale…” I have it in me. Do you have it in you?