Choosing the right Luxury PR Service for your brand can be challenge. In this blog we share our tips for sourcing a great luxury PR & what makes our services different.
“Yes, I tried PR, and I’ve not had a great experience”
Yep, you name it, we’ve heard the tale of luxury PR woes. From PR services that promised the world and delivered none, through to luxury PR that failed to position the brand in their luxury setting. So, what happened? Here at MirrorMePR, we not only pride ourselves on offering a fantastic PR & Social Media Marketing Service, but also our client satisfaction record. Every year, our clients get the opportunity to anonymously rate our services through an independent body. Every year we complete our rating criteria with consistently excellent performance. So what makes us different?
Experience Counts For A Lot:
Our MD comes from the other side of the fence as a fashion journalist and stylist. She worked with Luxury PR companies closely so understands first hand what the media wants and expects. Our MD also worked with global sports brands on the PR side before setting up the agency: This experience in luxury PR makes us different. It ensures that we understand the client/brand relationship at the highest level. Having this level of understanding is crucial in a PR role. Journalists are working even harder and under even tighter time restraints, they need a PR company that understand what they want, how they want it and when.
The ‘Pinocchio’ Effect:
We don’t believe in telling our clients fibs about how newsworthy a new product is/how great a client idea is (if it isn’t) and what outcome/expectations they can expect. Why? Because at some point you’ll find that the ‘yes’ agency suddenly started to make you think ‘no’. If you don’t like being told something isn’t going to work or aren’t open to your agency’s ideas and suggestions then either it’s the wrong relationship or you aren’t ready to appoint a professional agency. Honesty is what makes our Luxury PR Service different. Your luxury marketing strategies need to be true to your brand.
Qualified
We get it. Luxury PR is an investment, but before you start merrily invested your hard earned cash with a PR company, you need to look at their results and their qualifications. The fact is ANYONE can set up as a PR company. The facts are that you don’t need any qualifications or experience and that’s the scary part. We are accredited PR practitioners with CIPR, bound by a strict code of conduct, officially rated by our clients on our performance and our team boast a mix of journalist and social media qualifications.
Value Is Everything
Budgets are tight, but bad PR isn’t better than no PR. Appointing someone who is charging nothing is highly likely to deliver poor results and give your brand the reputation for cheapness. Think about your association and brand alignment – are they the right fit?
Social Skill Set
We offer Luxury PR Services and are qualified and trained to do so. Merrily handing over your social logins to a luxury PR agency that isn’t, is madness. Check out their social channels first and ask to see the current client platforms they manage. Are they brand specific, do they offer a unique tone of voice in keeping with the brand and how do they monitor and maintain these channels? Good social PR takes experience and knowledge and is more than just posting ‘pretty pictures’. (And yes some brands still believe that is all that lays behind a social media marketing strategy).
The Invisible Factor
One of the great mysteries for many brands is how at the initial meeting they are presented with a decent sized team of considerable experience and knowledge and yet when the account has been won, suddenly they all disappear, and it’s a junior/intern dealing with day to day account management. If you are paying just a few hundred pounds each month and expecting a team to manage your account at senior level and above, well, the likelihood is that you probably aren’t. It is always worth asking the luxury PR agency before signing up and steaming ahead towards disappointment. All luxury PR agencies are different, so don’t expect a ‘one size’ fits all approach your luxury brand.
Finally were Your Expectations On Track?
Sometimes we get a new business call, and the brand will start off by telling us how awful their previous luxury PR agency experience was. But as the story starts to unravel, it turns out that the brand wasn’t listening to the PR company and the advice they were being given and so was it any wonder that things didn’t work out? You don’t buy a guard dog and then bark yourself so why would you appoint a PR company and then start telling them what to do? Choosing the right luxury PR agency can make it different through careful research should mean that handing your ‘baby’ over is a relief and while you might feel understandably apprehensive in the early days, the right agency will be able to relieve any concerns with knowledge and understanding that gives you a feeling of growing confidence.
