When it comes to engineering or IT companies, choosing the right PR agency is far from straightforward. All too often, businesses in these technical fields are met with generic pitches from generalist PR firms, who usually fail to grasp the intricacies of the technology they are being asked to champion, or the unique characteristics and expectations of their target audience. In niche B2B sectors, a tailored vetting process for technical PR agencies is not merely advantageous, it is a must. Otherwise, budgets can (and will) inadvertently be squandered and campaigns will have senior executives asking why you didn’t deliver the genuine impact to the bottom line you sold to them.
How Do You Evaluate a Prospective Agency Partner’s Technical Expertise?
It should already be clear to you that B2B marketing, particularly in high tech sectors, requires specialist knowledge to create a specialised campaign. Once you have completed an advance screening to weed out those who mean well and are probably perfectly competent in certain areas, you then have to rigorously evaluate each short-listed agency’s technical proficiency. You can’t just ‘take their word for it’. They are, after all, professional marketers. Instead, it’s crucial to ask highly targeted questions that reveal how well the agency understands complex engineering concepts and, equally if not more important, can communicate them well. Ask about their typical content development workflow, their experience and process for collaborating with internal and often external subject matter experts, and their track record for ‘translating’ intricate technical information into palatable, engaging, and readily accessible content that is a pleasure to read. These basic questions (there are more, but these will do at the start) serve the dual purpose of getting the information you need and determining if you sense the ‘feel’ that you’re looking for, and for forming a practical checklist that will help you gauge whether the agency’s technical writing and overall communication capabilities truly track with your needs.
Find Out if Their Niche Media Relationships are Genuine
A critical aspect of selecting a technical PR agency lies in verifying the authenticity of their media connections. To distinguish between agencies that simply maintain a generic contact list and those with real, established relationships with influential editors and journalists in your specialist sector, ask questions like, “Can you provide a recent instance where you secured coverage in [Niche Publication A] how you pitched the story angle?” Make it a well-meaning and genuinely conversational question, not a criminal court-style demand for an answer. Yes, you are quite rightly looking for solid evidence of the veracity of the prospective agency’s claims of strong and trusted media connections, but remember, you are also looking for someone who you will personally enjoy working with in the future. By all means get the facts, and the feel, you need. Firm-but-fair wins respect and honesty, but a merciless grilling is not the best way to start a long-term partnership. By the time you can finally ‘look back on it and laugh’ you’ve already spent far too much capital on managing relationships with each other rather than the media.
Measuring Verifiable Technical Marketing ROI
Ensuring your investment in technical PR delivers genuine business value is a function of the measurement practices you use, and they must be robust to truly gauge the effectiveness of the campaign’s the agency you take on deploys. It’s very important to investigate how they typically report results and which key performance indicators they prioritise. Don’t be satisfied with discussions about vanity metrics. You want measurements that reflect meaningful progress toward the goals of your organisation. Ask prospective agencies about what KPIs they track, such as lead quality, increases in website traffic via target accounts, or direct contributions to sales deal closures. It is also useful to get a sense as to why they think those parameters are worthy of tracking. There may be some that are welcome additions that you had not previously considered. Others may already be known to you as questionable metrics, which will help you in the vetting process. Seeking clarity on their reporting methodologies, and how they link marketing and PR activity to tangible outcomes, will ensure accountability, which will in turn enable you to convincingly demonstrate to your C-Suite constituents that the budget they handed you is delivering the results that matter, i.e., the ones you promised.
Spotting Critical Red Flags During the Vetting Process
You should by now see the outline of the starting line for you selection of a technical marketing and PR agency, but this is where we encourage you to pause once more to scan the horizon for any latent red flags. For example, prospective agencies that place a high emphasis on awards without hard evidence to support their value, provide vanilla responses when questioned about measurement and ROI, or fail to demonstrate meaningful senior-level involvement in your account, should give you pause. These red flags, and others, can be subtle evidence of a lack of tangible substance behind their pitch. Be pleasant and approachable, but thorough and methodical in your vetting process.
