3 reasons why the traditional PR agency is f****d
By
|
March 3, 2013
By
|
March 3, 2013
The traditional PR agency is f****d.
There are countless reasons why but here are three.Should do to get us started.
Last week, something happened.
It was only a little thing, nothing but a digital flicker, but it contained a simple, but unequivocal, message: the PR industry, in its current guise at least, has had it.
The message came in the form of a tweet from a national business journalist I follow, who is also a pal of mine.
[caption id="attachment_2605" align="alignnone" width="400"]
Twitter is causing all kinds of problems for the traditional PR agency.[/caption]
He was after some views from an expert for a story he was writing and the moment I saw the tweet I thought: "I have just the client for you".
Thing is, by the time I'd got through to my pal, and this was only 10 minutes or so after his tweet, he DMed me to say that my client, MY client, had already been in touch. And that I was a loser.
This little
incident encapsulates perfectly howthe media are opening up.
These days, via Twitter and other social media platforms, journalists can be reached by anyone, any time. The media are no longer a mystery, an enigma that only PRs can solve.
[caption id="attachment_2602" align="alignnone" width="403"]
The media are no longer an enigma. How can they be when journalists are a millisecond away?[/caption]
How can the media be an enigma? Journalists are a millisecond away. They're right there in front of those fat paws as you type. Hell, they’re as good as sat on your lap.
Anyone can reply to a journalist’s tweet asking for a view and be on a newspaper website 10 minutes later. Alternatively, they can quickly tweet them a link to some content they’ve created. No more need to email a press release.
Companies, these days, want results.
In part, this is to do with the fact that many companies out there are on the rivet and every penny they spend has to be justified.
But it's also to do with the fact that bloody Google, with all this PPC malarkey, has gone and changed the way everyone thinks about marketing and PR and all this comms stuff.
Google has created a ghoul that scares the life out of the traditional PR agency: the pay-for-performance model.
[caption id="attachment_2608" align="alignnone" width="410"]
Google's PPC model has triggered the slow but sure death of the retainer model used by the traditional PR agency.[/caption]
Nowadays, more and more companies, especially companies run by younger people, cannot understand why they should pay for something if they do not receive results. Retainers are a foreign language.
Many of these new smart-arse CEOs you want to punch in the face, admittedly, but they're right. These days, it's all about results.
The days of the traditional PR agency being able to charge a few grand a month, or 10 grand a month, for producing adequate results, are over.
This growing focus on results explains why more and more companies are playing hard to get on contracts.
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The contract favoured by the traditional PR agency is dying a death. Increasingly, there's nowhere to hide.[/caption]
Three and six-month contracts are on their last legs. Why should I commit to spending £36k+VAT over six months with you? You might be pants.
I'm happy to start with you but I am NOT signing that contract.
At most, I'll give you a month’s notice. Now are we going to do this?
The third reason why the traditional PR agency has had it is the increased emphasis search engines are placing on quality content.
As Google gets cleverer, quality of content and the social signals that that content attracts are becoming ever more important. In fact, create super content and you can attract huge amounts of traffic direct to your site.
The media know this, and they're shitting themselves. After all, if someone writes better content than the media write on a subject, Google will reward them.
Google couldn't care if you're Reuters or a blog run on a shoestring. If you're a blog and are producing something awesome, you will rank like a madman andhoover up the eyeballs direct.
And the best thing of all is that eyeballs on your own website are far more likely to convert into paying customers.
So, if a pr agency is focused exclusively on the media, as many are, then its fate is tied to something that is itself under threat.
A week or so ago I
, asking companies whether they'd prefer to be on Page 1 of Google or Page 1 of a broadsheet.
It's still early days but the vast majority have responded that Google is far more important to them than the media.
If the traditional PR agency doesn't switch onto search, SEO and content marketing, and quick sharp, then it's Game Over.
[caption id="attachment_2612" align="alignnone" width="420"]
If the traditional PR agency model doesn't evolve, it's Game Over.[/caption]
