Tag Archive for: boutique pr firm los angeles

5 Tips for Choosing a B2B PR Agency

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Choosing a B2B PR agency can feel overwhelming. For one, it’s all promises at the start, and for two, what’s REALLY the difference between PR agencies? Well, it’s important to understand distinctions, but only within the context of how they apply to you. It’s not just about PR pricing, realistically, the key elements to choosing a B2B PR firm require you to know your needs first. But here’s the advice I give my peers when they’re hiring an agency.

Do They Work With B2B Companies Like Me?

Choosing a B2B PR agency means knowing who you are now and where you’re going. Where you’re headed may be more important than who you are now.  And ask for B2B PR examples or case studies. When you look at the case studies, look to see how they are like you, if they’re where you want to be – and if the growth measurements are ones you can identify with. Yes, you can be impressed by tier 1 coverage in outlets like Bloomberg, or TechCrunch, but dig deeper and look at the situation and the outcomes.

Every PR agency has an ideal client with whom they work best. Don’t be afraid to ask: who do you work best with? For example, here at Avaans Media, we’re very clear. We work with very ambitious and fast-growing companies; for us that typically means companies that are pre-IPO startups. Some agencies specialize in tech PR, and some niche into industries like AI PR, cleantech PR, or cannabis PR.   Some agencies prefer to work with publicly traded companies, some prefer to work with clients in a particular sector (for us, that’s emerging industries).

My personal advice to my entrepreneurial colleagues: choose a PR agency who has experience with companies that have the same goals as you.

 

What’s the Experience Level of Your Team

Experience matters. An experienced team is skilled at scanning the horizons for the media trends that will impact your business and reputation the most while also being able to execute your tactical needs on a day-to-day basis.

A lot of times, the person you meet with about working with the agency never works on your account. So, that seasoned, wise exec is not the one solving your problems. It’s common for agencies to have inexperienced people doing the heavy lifting on PR accounts. How seasoned and wise is your PR team going to be? This is a really important question worth asking. I really believe one of the top reasons we’re a top-rated boutique PR Agency is because our team is executive-level experienced. Everyone on our team has a minimum of ten years of experience in PR, many of them with much more than that. As importantly, they can all discuss B2B media trends and their impact on your business.

My advice to my colleagues: make sure your team includes oversight from someone with at least twenty years PR experience. Your day-to-day person might be more like 15-17 years of experience, but you want someone who has been through funding rounds, recessions, wins and failures who oversees the strategy.

How Will They Measure Success?

There are a few key B2B KPIs that PR agencies can measure independently. But working with your PR agency, you can really start to see traction on outcomes if you’re working collaboratively. These could be business KPIs like moving the need in your business – things like sales impact, time to decision, and number of incoming inquiries. PR can impact Big Hairy Goals – if your B2B PR agency can’t show you how to measure these things, they might not think big enough for you.

Choosing a B2B PR agency that builds programs based on your goals is paramount, and for that, you need to be clear on your goals; and if you want to really maximize your investment, open the kimono a bit. If your goals are sales-oriented, have your salespeople talk to your PR agency about the problems they face in the marketplace. If your goals are related to an IPO, then share with your PR agency more information about your timeline, your targets, and your concerns. A great B2B PR agency can help you avoid pitfalls. If you’re looking for more venture funding as a PR goal, then make sure your PR team knows that and can share their experiences with you.

Bottom line advice to my colleagues: open the kimono and give your agency the room they need to be your partner, but when you do that, hold them accountable and keep make sure you’re both tracking KPIs.

B2B PR Pricing: Where Do You Fit In?

Yes, it’s essential to know your PR budget – but what’s equally important is to know the budgets of your agency’s clients.  This is one of those moments where bigger isn’t always better. For example, if your budget is under $175,000 annually, you probably don’t want one of the country’s largest PR firms, even though technically, they’d probably accept you, depending on the scope of work. Why? Because you’re likely to get shoe-horned into a PR team with little experience and a lot of turnover. Meanwhile, you can expect a consistent, experienced, and highly engaged team for that budget at a mid-range agency. And if you’re paying $5K/month at an agency, you simply aren’t paying enough. Agencies can’t do outstanding work for that budget; a freelancer can make it work, but a team of experienced, engaged, proactive PR executives can’t do the work needed for that budget.

Bottom line: when choosing a B2B PR agency, align your budget with the experience you’re looking for. You might not get the best for your team if you’re at the bottom of an agency’s scale. If you’re at the top of the scale, you can expect a white glove experience.

 

What’s the PR Plan?

One struggle we most commonly hear about hiring a PR firm is not knowing what you’re going to get. That’s true. The way most B2B PR agencies work is they provide you with a proposal about their program without having a firm grasp on the details of your business. Avaans Media solves this issue with our unique strategy-based PR pricing. This enables you to know exactly what you’re going to get before you make a massive commitment to a PR agency. The reality is, unless you’re really experienced working with PR agencies, you probably struggle to differentiate between the plans you get or the plans you get differentiate on things that won’t really matter to your outcome (like fancy proprietary platforms or reporting tools). Instead, focus on outcomes in your PR plan and ask your PR agency to provide you with expected results so you have a clear idea of how your PR plan will help your company grow.

Bottom-line advice: Get to the numbers fast. What does your PR agency realistically hope to accomplish?

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What is a Boutique Agency and Should You Consider One?

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As you research PR agencies you may see many touting that they are “boutique.” What is a boutique agency? A boutique agency is an agency that prides itself on its smaller size, usually under 20 employees. Boutique agencies tend to offer either specializations or a more hands-on approach to client services.

Is a boutique agency right for you? Whether a boutique agency is right for you certainly depends on your needs. So, let’s explore some common questions about boutique PR agencies.

Do Boutique Agencies Offer the Same Services as Larger Agencies?

In so much as all agencies vary in services offered, yes, but boutique agencies expand and contract as a client needs. To do this, they often rely on a trusted team of subject experts and implementation specialists. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. The advantage is you’re not paying for services and team members you aren’t using. The disadvantage is adding to scope and implementation may take longer. Let’s say you need a 3-minute video done, and you need it finished yesterday.

Regardless of agency size, you’re dealing with the adage of “pick two: fast, excellent, or cheap.” But a super-fast turnaround may be firmly in the realm of possibility within a large agency. They may have a scriptwriter, videographer, and editing team at the ready. Meanwhile, if you ask a boutique agency to script a video, record a video, and edit one, it may take slightly longer as those team members aren’t ready right away, and to make it happen, you may pay more for the additional scope than at a larger agency, since these are “on-call” specialist team members as opposed to those employed full-time by a larger agency. So if you need an agency for services at the last minute, or with a 24-7 approach, a larger agency may be your better choice.

On the other hand, at a larger agency, you are paying for 24/7 service whether you need it or not. Another consideration of larger agencies vs. boutique pr agencies is the experience level of your team. Larger PR agencies often have less seasoned account managers running your PR strategy, and that may lead to more turn over and missing out on decades of experience from executive-level PR teams. 

Do I Get The Same Level of Service?

Of course, it depends on your definition of service. So let’s break down how agencies of different sizes handle client management. Boutique agencies have more “working managers,” which means your account managers are frequently agency executives. Their level of engagement will vary depending on factors like your PR budget, but they’re more deeply involved with your account than at a larger agency. You may even work with the CEO of the agency at a boutique agency; a highly unlikely occurrence at a large agency.

Also, typically, larger agencies assign more clients per team member than boutique agencies do. While a strategist at a large agency may carry 6-8 clients, at a boutique agency, your strategist may carry 4-5 clients at once. For example, at our agency, we’re regularly receiving service inquiries, but our current clients always come first. We make that choice because our senior strategists are involved in both biz development and client work. If personalized strategies and personal attention matter, a smaller agency may suit you better.

At a larger agency, it’s very common to work with an executive during the RFP or decision-making process, but that executive is rarely involved in the day-to-day of your account; you may see them once a month. So if working with executive-level strategists is important to you, you may appreciate the personalized attention a boutique offers. But if you are someone who only wants to hear from your agency’s account team when necessary or you’re ok with a more junior account team for the day-to-day, then you may appreciate the larger agency’s approach. But if you want more engaged and experienced strategists, who are regularly active in and with your account, then a smaller agency might be better.

Are Boutique Agencies Less Expensive?

First, some perspective. Your $20,000 budget might be a minimum at a larger agency, but quite substantial at a boutique agency. So, you should consider the value of PR for your company and working with a larger agency as part of the whole value proposition (like the additional services mentioned above). Sometimes hiring a larger agency is well worth it; “no one ever got fired for hiring Edelman.”

So, even though your budget doesn’t command the same level of respect from a larger agency, there may be a real advantage to having a named agency as your agency of record.  But if you want the red carpet rolled out for you, at that price range, then a boutique agency may be a better choice for you.

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Avaans Media Named #1 Los Angeles Top Boutique PR Firm

Los Angeles PR firm Avaans Media, specializing in emerging industries and ambitious brands, has been recognized as one of Los Angeles’ #1 Boutique PR Firm

“For a PR agency that defines successes by its clients’ success, this is an exciting honor, on top of an already thrilling year,” said Avaans Media CEO Tara Coomans. “Our clients have appeared in Venture Beat, The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Fortune, Forbes, and dozens of others since the beginning of 2023,” she continued.

Clutch.com is a business services referral site that hosts verified client reviews to help businesses identify the best PR agency fit for their business. Thousands of PR companies in Los Angeles are listed on Clutch, but Clutch only recognizes the top boutique firms in Los Angeles. Brands may purchase sponsored listings on Clutch, but its Top Los Angeles Boutique PR Agencies are based on client reviews, niche depth, and proven results.

Coomans credits Avaans’ A-Team white-glove services and their distinctive strategy and competitive analysis process. With its unique strategy and competitive analysis process, established in 2022, Avaans Media has exceeded client goals by an average of 300%, and PR results are 2X more effective than the competition.

“We’re a boutique firm, and I believe that’s our strength,” said Coomans.

Avaans Media was founded in 2008 by Tara Coomans and established itself in Los Angeles in 2015, specializing in emerging industries such as AI, Cannabis, Drones, and ambitious brands.

 

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Avaans Media Named Among Los Angeles’ Top PR Firms

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Los Angeles PR firm Avaans Media, specializing in emerging industries and ambitious brands, has been recognized as one of Los Angeles’ Top PR firms by Clutch.

“For a PR agency that defines successes by its clients’ success, this is an exciting honor, on top of an already thrilling year,” said Avaans Media CEO Tara Coomans. “Our clients have appeared in Venture Beat, The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Fortune, Forbes, and dozens of others since the beginning of 2023,” she continued.

Clutch.com is a business services referral site that hosts verified client reviews to help businesses identify the best PR agency fit for their business. Thousands of PR companies in Los Angeles are listed on Clutch, but Clutch only recognizes the top 15. Brands may purchase sponsored listings on Clutch, but its Top Los Angeles PR Agencies are based on client reviews, niche depth, and proven results.

Coomans credits Avaans’ A-Team white-glove services and their distinctive strategy and competitive analysis process. With its unique strategy and competitive analysis process, established in 2022, Avaans Media has exceeded client goals by an average of 300%, and PR results are 2X more effective than the competition.  With this recognition, Avaans Media punches above its weight next to other larger, established firms.

Avaans Media was founded in 2008 by Tara Coomans and established itself in Los Angeles in 2015, specializing in emerging industries such as AI, Cannabis, Drones, and ambitious brands.

 

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PR for AI Startups – Is It Too Late?

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ChatGPT was a seismic event for AI PR. AI companies that focused on generating language models for prompts and voice commands were already years ahead. “AI prompts for ChatGPT” topics were all the rage, and for AI startups, that was actually quite frustrating because they knew there are so many deep, interesting topics to cover. And that’s why it’s not too late for public relations for AI startups.

As a PR agency specializing in emerging technologies, our clients definitely benefited from the burst of AI coverage after ChatGPT became a media darling. Still, our clients are already working on AI technologies that make businesses more efficient and embrace the human element to allow more informed decisions.

Journalists will cover artificial intelligence in the way they covered social media during its infancy: obsessively, as there are still a lot of stories to tell in commercial AI PR. AI-assisted technologies will continue to exist, so there will be endless types of articles to write, and they will not solely revolve around creating content or the disappearance of jobs.

The Case for PR Urgency

Executives and boardrooms are still unsure about what AI means for their companies. And tomorrow’s most relevant AI brands are taking the opportunity right now to create media coverage around topics that position them as thought leaders. An AI PR agency that understands the cyclical nature of PR for hyper-growth and emerging industries is an essential resource for AI startups.

85% of AI startups will be out of business in three years. From content to thought leadership to contributed content and niche audience trends, the PR strategies AI companies choose today will be the differentiator for AI startups from the earliest phases to pre-IPO. AI is dominating venture funding headlines and grabbing what venture funding dollars are available today, and that means tomorrow’s most exciting IPOs will be AI companies. And while those companies need PR for AI companies, even those who intend to stay private should embrace PR because the industry is at its most crucial stage.

Educating the Consumer About The Future of AI

Like with other hot emerging industries, AI technologies have the opportunity right now to develop positive relationships with stakeholders, customers, and consumers. As an industry, AI companies should take this very seriously because AI’s potential is scary to consumers, especially since consumers are still experiencing techlash from the unforeseen consequences of social media. Educating consumers about how the AI industry addresses their fears and concerns is a key opportunity for public relations for AI companies.

Even B2B AI companies should take the lead on educating the masses about AI’s potential. Why is this important? When the average person understands how AI will make their life better, AI will seem less scary and this is important to regulators.

AI companies can also take this opportunity to self regulate, instead of waiting for a government backlash from representatives who don’t understand what it is (see Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional hearing). Taking stakeholders along the journey enables them to see the future with you, as opposed to despite you. PR services are critical to this journey because today’s actions will have an outsized impact in the future.

From content creation to PR campaigns, AI companies should lean into tech where it makes sense, and lean into relationships where it’s most important.

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Consumer Spending Trends and Stats for 2023

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2023 has been a roller coaster for businesses. From CPG to consumer electronics, consumer brands look for ways to see inside the looking glass for the pivotal Q4 holiday spending season. Mixed signals abound. In the spring, Kiplinger’s Economic Outlets says e-commerce and general merchandise spending remains strong and core sales (even adjusted for inflation) were up .6%, but sporting goods, clothing, and grocery continue to decline, this spring. But Father’s Day spending is expected to set records (National Retail Federation), as did Mother’s Day spending. E-commerce and DTC brands wonder how they should plan for the 2023 holiday spending season?

What are the top consumer stats for 2023 that ambitious consumer brands need to know?

  • 86% of consumers say online sources helped them make more informed decisions (Google)
  • Holiday spending in 2023 is expected to increase 4.5% to $1.3 trillion in 2023 (Insider Intelligence)
  • 98% of consumers plan to purchase a Christmas gift (Supermarket News)
  • 55% of consumers have made a purchase directly from email (Cheetah Digital)
  • 88% of consumers plan increased food-related purchases for Thanksgiving (Supermarket News)
  • 31% of consumers say inflation will have a moderate impact on their spending (Numerator)
  • Purchases from banner ads are down 36% (Cheetah Digital)
  • In 2022, 80% of consumers researched or browsed before making a purchase (Google)
  • In 2022, 20% of consumers made a purchase on impulse (Google)
  • 72% of U.S. consumers are prepared to purchase more from their preferred brands (Cheetah Digital)

 

 

Sometimes it’s hard to get a handle on how the consumer feels, especially since your analytics and stats are always backward-looking. That’s why it’s helpful to look at how major retailers view the marketplace.

What are big brands saying about 2023 consumer spending?

“We continue to see some improvements in many items, commodity prices are starting to fall – not back to pre-COVID levels in some examples, but continue to provide some relief – things like chicken, bacon, butter, steel, resin, nuts…Our average transactions, our shopping frequency is up…So those things bode well, but people certainly are spending their dollars where they feel like they should be spending them.” – Costco CFP Richard Galanti

 

“What we are seeing is the consumer making $80,000 a year is trading down…The current economic climate is driving more higher-income consumers into value retail.” – Dollar Tree CEO Rick Dreiling

 

“..We believe the desire to be with loved ones, go on vacation, and attend events has not diminished, and expect gift-giving and occasion-based demand to continue. – Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette

 

Top trends driving consumer spending

 

Consumer Loyalty

Given rising prices, consumers increasingly choose to stick with the brands they know and love. Consumer brands can leverage this through loyalty programs and word-of-mouth incentives. Give your loyal customer a reason to share your email or recommend your brand, so the next time it comes up with their friends, your brand is top of mind. One way to do this is provide tips and social proof in your email marketing. It’s all about positioning. Your current customers don’t need to be “sold”; they need to have their choices reinforced. Therefore we recommend brands leverage PR coverage in their email marketing with a pat on the back and share an incentive to their existing customers. For those who are on your list and haven’t yet purchased, use a “look what others say,” message.

 

Values-Based Messaging

On the decline? Purpose-based messaging. Only 16% of consumers are voting with their wallets about “responsible brand” messaging. This is likely because of a general fatigue of this type of messaging. Consumer brands sound continues with existing social-impact programs but present them to consumers as part of the brand, not as a defined campaign.

 

Advertising Trust Decreases

While searching online for third-party verifications like reviews and media coverage is up, purchasing from banner ads is down 36% – consumers know ads aren’t trustworthy. Consumers are overwhelmed with messages and struggling to keep up with all the “buy now” signals. They’re looking for ways to cut through the noise and they trust search results and social proof more than anything else. This is also a good time to invest in quality owned content. As search continues to evolve due to AI changes, quality content will become more critical.

 

In conclusion…

Consumer holiday spending will be up, but consumer brands will need to fight both harder and smarter for those dollars. This isn’t the year for ambitious brands to take their foot off the gas. You can examine ways to spend smarter with your existing agency or you can look for programs that decrease PR agency costs for consumer brands.

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