Why do I need a PR agency?

Mounting an effective public relations (PR) program requires a broad range of skills and a fair amount of experience. First, a determination should be made regarding how--or if--PR should be a part of your overall marketing program. If "yes," you must establish the goals you are trying to meet through your PR program. Next, you must select which PR activities will support those goals. And finally, you must execute those activities.

The skills needed for successful completion of all these steps includes the ability to analyze your marketplace, your customers, and your competition, and come up with the right "mix" of PR activities. This requires the ability to determine with PR outlets (publications, web sites, media services, etc.) are relevant to your company, and what types of stories they like. Good copywriting skills are essential for creating news releases and feature articles that the publications will actually put into print. And, due to the high amount of "churn" at the publications, it is necessary to maintain accurate records of who is the right contact and the best way to reach them.

If you have an in-house PR department, you can cover all these areas yourself. But if you're like most of our clients, you simply don't have enough manpower or expertise to conduct an efficient, effective PR program.

PR is a core business for us, and we have knowledge of the publications, copywriting proficiency, experience working with editors, and the computer resources to keep everything organized and running smoothly. In particular, we can offer our clients the following services and capabilities:

  • We use our technical background to select the right PR outlets to meet the needs of your specific company. We then create a custom database that's used only for your company. We do not use generic "technology" databases which hit publications of no interest to you, while missing many which could be critical. PR firms which are not technology specialists often make this mistake when trying to serve technology-oriented clients.
  • We maintain your database using our own proprietary software designed specifically for managing PR activities.
  • We feel strongly that your database is your property. We do not follow the PR industry-standard practice of keeping your own database a secret from you. You can have a copy of it any time you want. We will supply it to you as a DBF or Excel file, or in any of several other common file formats... also as hard copy.
  • We use our knowledge of the publications, their editors, and their editorial calendars, to make sure the news releases and feature article proposals we send them are relevant to their needs.
  • We know how to speak to the publications' editors and writers. They are extremely busy people, and they can easily get "turned off" by the wrong approach or by irrelevant information.
  • We write your news releases and articles using the language of your target audience. We instinctively understand what's important to them since we are engineers ourselves.

Our track record getting our clients "in print" is quite good. Please let us demonstrate this to you.

A new article will be provided here every couple of months, so check back often!