Hire A PR Firm with A Transparent Display Case
By Alex Greenwood
Are your prices clearly marked?
Hiring a PR firm is fraught with excitement, questions, and yes, sometimes sticker shock. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: “I had no idea PR firms cost that much!”
Feelings about price are relative, really. One person’s expensive is another’s bargain; but suffice to say, some prospective clients don’t realize that PR professionals are like any other professional or skilled tradesperson. We have skills, experience, contacts and proven strategies that we can’t give you for $25 an hour. If we did, we’d be out of business pretty damn fast.
When our firm is contacted by people seeking PR services, we lay out the “display case” of PR and content marketing products we offer. We also inform prospective clients about fees with a good ballpark range, stipulating that until the contract is worked out it’s a general estimate.
If the prospective client is still interested, then it’s proposal time, where we lay out the general strategy and fee structure (Click here for more info about PR fees). From there it’s usually a question of “good fit” or some negotiation about budget. No dramatic surprises. While I won’t say what our prospect-to-conversion rate is, I will say that usually after a proposal is drawn up, we do pretty well.
However, I know we have failed in our process when, after sending a proposal, we get one or more of the following:
A. “I had no idea PR firms cost that much! I can’t hire you!”
B. “How about we trade?”
C. Crickets. (No response.)
And guess what? If we hear any of those things after the proposal stage, it’s not the prospect’s fault. It’s ours.
Why? Simple.
We didn’t do a good enough job explaining what we charge. If we have an initial conversation and you don’t hang up the phone or leave the meeting with a ballpark figure of what our services will cost for your project, campaign or whatever, then we have no one to blame but ourselves when we work up a proposal that goes nowhere.
This is a lesson for many small businesses that provide services. Are the items in your display case clearly marked? I by no means believe you should post a menu of prices on your website, but if you’re going into a conversation that looks promising, you owe it to yourself to make sure your concept of “affordable” or “reasonable” is in the same ballpark your prospect plays in.
