The first installment of this two-part blog highlighted five critical tips for new companies starting out with a public relations firm. In part two, we’ll examine how startups can ensure they are getting their money’s worth – both in terms of their participation in the PR process and measurement.

Here are some additional important tips toward that end:

• Let your PR agency be your partner. Working with a PR agency effectively requires trust, transparency and accessibility, so make sure company leadership is willing to share their product and/or service roadmap with the agency, identify internal subject matter experts, trust the agency’s experience and professional recommendations, and be available to answer any and all questions in a timely manner.
• Recognize that PR is a process that makes clients and the PR agency more effective. PR requires a good story and valid third-party resources, like customers, partners and industry analysts to help tell your story and add credibility.
• Understand today’s media landscape. It’s changed dramatically in recent decades: there is no cookie-cutter approach to cultivating company awareness, whether you are a startup or well-established company. Listen to your PR agency team, keep them informed every step of the way, and provide all the elements required to ensure success – all within the timing that makes sense based on readiness of the product/service. There is no magic wand, but an experienced PR agency is pretty close.
• Work with your agency in establishing empirical key performance indicators (KPIs) for each part of the PR engagement. KPIs must be based on realistic goals – not lavish dreams. Even Apple and Microsoft didn’t become famous overnight. KPIs typically include a minimum number of article placements, for example, but go beyond that to include qualitative factors as well – all agreed upon with the agency early in the engagement.
• Beyond measuring overall PR results like message sentiment, views, and link clicks, your PR firm should also use quantitative measures, such as identifying your top five to ten keywords and determine where you will rank on Google search. PR companies should be savvy enough to review website analytics to determine traffic and spikes and determine what content is driving traffic to your site. Relying solely on impressions and views is simply not enough in today’s data-driven communications market.