5 ways to lose a PR pitch
A lot of effort goes into your attempt to land a client. Success depends largely on whether that effort is thoughtful or misguided. Here are some common mistakes to avoid.
(Anyone who has completed these knows they’re laborious, time-sucking exercises that don’t accomplish much more than a half-hour phone call would—but that’s part of the gig, and a blog post for a different day.)
Now, if your PR firm is selected to advance to the next round, that typically means pulling together a comprehensive presentation that shows the prospect how your team thinks, what they’d actually do, and how much it would cost.
That’s a lot of work, right? And when you consider that PR agencies often go up against three-to-five competing firms, the odds are stacked against you from the get-go. Here’s how you can make sure you have no chance to win the PR business, despite hours-upon-hours of work:
1. Fill the presentation with 20 slides about how wonderful your firm is, and about stellar work you’ve done for other companies. This will effectively alert the prospect to the fact that you’ve just regurgitated the contents of the RFP into slide form, and haven’t spent any time actually thinking about their unique business needs. Kiss the business goodbye.
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