Become the industry expert your clients deserve

David Murphy is an account supervisor at Method Communications.

There’s an understanding in PR that if you want to go deep, work in-house, and if you want to go wide, work for an agency. If you chose the latter, chances are you’ll be staffed on multiple accounts in a variety of industries. You might have never thought about crypto, unless it was a meme, and suddenly your new crypto client’s asking for your opinion on strategy. Welcome to public relations! 

How much time you dedicate to learning the ins-and-outs of a new industry can drastically vary, depending on whether it’s a brand new client, or you’re just the fresh face on an existing account. The best case scenario is your agency just won a brand new client — congratulations — and you’re tasked with absorbing everything you can before the avalanche of real PR work starts. So where do you begin? 

Don’t reinvent the wheel 

The secret to success in PR is to work smarter not harder. Figure out what existing materials and resources are at your disposal and where you need fresh research to fill in the gaps. If your agency already has a client in this particular industry, connect with that team for recommendations on where to start. They might have existing onboarding materials quickly condensing the key players and defining industry jargon, or at the very least, can point you toward essential trade publications to read. 

If PR is a vehicle to tell your client’s story, the media list is the gasoline of the entire operation. Take a look at your colleagues’ media list to get a quick glimpse of who’s who in the industry, and which publications and reporters will become go-to targets moving forward. You’ll want to spend time reading their coverage and monitoring their X accounts to identify what elements they typically include in coverage. Do they only speak with CEOs? Or maybe they require exclusives? 

If you’re the fresh face on an existing account the good news is your team is there to support you while you get up to speed. While Google is your friend and independent research is always welcome, you can take comfort in the fact that you can rely on your teammates for client context and history.  

Breaking new ground

If you find yourself on The Road Not (previously) Taken, and this is your agency’s very first foray into cybersecurity, edtech, or any number of fill-in-the-blank industries, a proactive mindset makes all the difference. The first thing you’ll want to understand is where your client fits into the marketplace. Look back at the last few months of announcements, at their C-suite’s thought leadership profiles (or lack thereof), and analyze why an announcement succeeded or failed to generate coverage. 

From there, the next step is to ask your client who their top competitors are. Researching the scope of competitor coverage, what messaging resonates and who is covering them, will provide a strong sense of what success metrics look like for your relationship moving forward. 

For example, if it is an industry where competitors struggle to generate significant coverage, or, alternatively, receive dozens of earned mentions each month, you’ll want to be aware of this. Compiling a competitor share of voice report allows you and your team to start off on a solid foundation.     

Become a sponge 

Whether you’re leading the charge with a new industry at your firm, or simply joining an existing account, the common thread to becoming the industry expert your clients deserve is to read, watch and listen to everything you can. As Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”