In my post The Thrill of the Startup in Tech PR I wrote about some of the benefits (as well as challenges) of providing PR services for these types of companies.
I now realize that I may have neglected one of the biggest benefits of all. Let me explain.
In the agency world, we instruct our staff that they need to be consultants. Our clients look to us for counsel. One of the signs that you have “arrived” as an accounts person is that this becomes second nature. You feel comfortable giving advice, the advice is good advice, you think on your feet, can answer the tough questions and have the sometimes tough conversations in which you need to give less than flattering feedback to the client or push back on some of their ideas.
It is clear that you are being taken seriously as a consultant when the client takes his or her medicine, takes your advice (without constantly demanding attention from top agency brass), and the combined agency and client side teams collaborate to do good PR and produce the desired results.
As important as it is to be an effective PR consultant, we should also instruct our teams that there is no shame in learning from the client. Especially those clients who have been through multiple successful ventures and are now on to the next ones.
I am thinking about the ones who have been up and down the industry, know the major conferences and how to leverage them and often have invaluable contacts amongst VCs, analysts, and media.
Of course, your advice is (hopefully) still valued by these types of clients, but your advice should be tempered and show an appreciation for their know-how. Hopefully, you can learn a thing or two from them and benefit by some of their contacts and down-in-the-trenches experiences of what works well in tech marketing.
I was reminded of this when my team worked with one of our newer clients – a serial entrepreneur as described above – to plan for last week’s Interop show (I am only holding back on the name because I haven’t received the client’s permission to divulge it).
At any rate this client is a real showman, he has been a DEMO God multiple times, and knows how to best work the tech trade shows. I thought I had seen it all over my long career but this client captivated our team with ideas on how to generate buzz at trade shows that we had not considered before. With one of those being to appeal to a wider audience, this can include branding merchandise that people would like to see. This could mean personalized tank tops or custom made bags with our logo on, etc. there is a lot that can be done to make people more aware and take part.
So even though we did not have an announcement at the show we got lots of attention from media, analysts and they got some excellent sales leads.
