The best PR results have a longer time horizon

Everyone wants results fast. We do too.

But PR doesn’t work on your schedule. Or even our schedule. It works on the news cycle’s schedule, which varies according to industry. The media moves extremely fast – and now even faster than ever with social media. Even journalists and those in newsrooms are at the mercy of what else is (or could be) happening around the world. 

For that reason, all of our services run on a minimum 6-month timeline. 

Unless you’re on a very specific timeline, a 6-month timeline is the shortest time horizon that allows us to make the biggest impact possible with getting you the best and most useful coverage, while also accounting for all the variables that are outside of our control. Variables like:

• The gatekeeper lag: You can’t control when editors and journalists get back to you… if they do at all. And oftentimes, when they DO get back to us, there’s no telling what other story has pulled them in another direction and they get distracted.

• The publishing cycle: Even AFTER a gatekeeper has said yes, it can take several weeks or months before any content is actually completed (an article written, a podcast recorded and published, etc).

• Editor timelines: Press is not about getting an instant mention. In some cases, you’ll be scheduling a podcast episode in advance, or we’ll need to write an entire article and have it pass through 5 rounds of editing before it can go live.

• Seasonality: Not all months are created equal. The news cycle during the holiday season is very different from the summer. A November during an election year is very different from any other November when there’s no election. Not to mention unpredictable, uncontrollable events that can pop up at any time. 6 months is the best period to account for seasonality.

• “Snowballing”: Something that most clients don’t realize is that really big press opportunities come from first building the relationships and getting smaller press as leverage to “snowball” it – which can take weeks and months of campaigning, especially if you haven’t already been in the media. (Even if you have been, being CURRENT and relevant are crucial to getting coverage, so clients often need a renewed campaign.)

We understand that 6 months is a big commitment, and if we could get rid of it, we would – it certainly doesn’t help with sales!

We have tried no minimum, 3 month minimums, and 6 month minimum contracts. Six-month commitments have worked out best for our clients. 

We once had a client end their contract after 3 months, only for all our work to avalanche in month 4. But by then, the engagement was over and we couldn’t help them make use of that press..In the end, that client missed out on several big publicity opportunities because they could not see out the remainder of their contract. 

The 6-month commitment for our packages allows us to go HARD on day 1 to build traction and momentum rather than slowly dripping things out, hoping they’ll succeed. 

And while other agencies may guarantee press every month, you can be sure they do BS tricks to “pace” the press to protect their monthly guarantee. This could include: 

• Paying for press on demand when things are slow
• Delaying press to the next billing month when things are hot 

Good press is inherently “spikey.” 

If you want attention in a loud, crowded room, it’s better to scream at the top of your lungs for 2 seconds than to whisper for 5 hours.

The 6-month commitment also incentivizes our publicists to go the extra mile and make the most use of their connections. 

Our publicists face a big risk: If they go out on a limb to hustle up a big opportunity but the client ends the commitment before it hits, the publicist either has to:

• Do free work to see the opportunity through (which could take several months depending on the press cycle and size of the opportunity) or, 
• Say “never mind” and burn an invaluable connection, damaging their reputation and our ability to get further results for other clients.

Because we’re able to focus on doing our best work from the get go, by the end of those 6 months, we have better results than agencies who are spending all their effort on retainer management.

Keep in mind that signing up for a 6-month minimum does not mean you won’t see any results for the entire 6 months, it means that beyond just getting individual hits, we help you snowball smaller press into bigger waves, and we need time to make that happen.

Also, the press cycle runs on its own timeline – 6 months gives us the time to get results no matter what’s going on.

If you don’t have the confidence or budget to commit to 6 months, you may not be ready for publicity efforts right now, and that’s totally fine. 

If you DO feel ready to talk about publicity for your business, feel free to schedule a no-strings-attached call with us!