Nonprofit and for-profit organizations hiring a PR agency for the first time often have ambitious goals but limited experience with what makes an agency relationship productive. They may understand the value of earned media, thought leadership, reputation management, and stakeholder communications without realizing how much the quality of the client-agency relationship influences results.
Public relations is collaborative. The agency brings communications expertise, media relationships, strategy, writing, outside perspective, and counsel. The client brings organizational knowledge, access to leadership and subject matter experts, data, timely information, and an understanding of its customers and other priority stakeholder groups. Both have distinct responsibilities.
This collaboration is particularly important in today’s media environment. According to Muck Rack’s 2026 State of Journalism, 70% of journalists say pitches should demonstrate clear relevance to their beat. For organizations new to PR, this demonstrates why hiring an agency is only part of the equation. Clients must give their PR partners the information, expertise, access, and responsiveness required to identify and capitalize on meaningful opportunities.
Based on our experience working with organizations across our core industries, including the nonprofit sector, here are five client practices and three agency responsibilities that can establish a strong foundation for a productive, long-term client-PR agency relationship.
Five Things Clients New to Working With a PR Agency Should Do
1. Give Your PR Agency a Seat at the Table
Regularly invite your public relations agency to strategy meetings, high-level brainstorms, and discussions involving C-suite decisions that may affect communications, reputation, customers, employees, media, or other key stakeholder groups.
Organizations sometimes operate in silos and exclude outside agency partners from discussions that have significant communications implications. The PR team may learn about an acquisition after agreements are finalized, a product launch several weeks before it occurs, an executive transition when employees are about to be notified, or a significant organizational milestone after most decisions have already been made. By then, opportunities may have been lost.
Giving an agency a seat at the table does not mean involving the PR firm in every management discussion. It means bringing the team into conversations early enough when decisions may create communications opportunities or reputational implications.
2. Set Goals Together and Determine How You Will Measure Them
Clients and agencies should establish objectives and benchmarks at the beginning of an engagement so expectations are realistic while goals remain ambitious. This needs to be a collaborative process. The client understands its organizational priorities, while the agency understands which communications outcomes are achievable and how PR may contribute to broader objectives. The discussion should go well beyond “we’d like to see more publicity.”
Different objectives require different PR strategies. Does the organization need greater awareness among prospective customers? Is the objective to establish executives as recognized thought leaders? Improve reputation? Differentiate the organization from its competitors? Reach donors, policymakers, healthcare providers, veterinarians, educators, community leaders, partners, or other important groups? Support business development? Improve the quality of information people find when researching the organization online?
Goals also determine measurement. Depending on the program, meaningful indicators might include the quality and relevance of earned media coverage, inclusion of priority messages, executive interviews, thought leadership opportunities, share of voice, website referral traffic, search results, stakeholder engagement, inbound inquiries, or other measures tied to agreed-upon objectives.
Muck Rack’s 2025 State of PR found that 67% of PR professionals said producing measurable results is the best way to elevate the perceived value of public relations. This is an important distinction for organizations new to PR: activity and impact are not the same thing. Ten media placements without a strategic narrative or thought leadership theme may have less value than three stories in authoritative outlets with the right positioning, messaging, and visual element.
The client and agency should agree at the outset on what success looks like and periodically evaluate progress against those benchmarks.
3. Ask Questions, and Expect Candid Answers
Organizations without PR expertise on staff should encourage their teams to ask questions about agency recommendations. Why is the agency recommending a thought leadership approach with bylined article/s and a keynote speaking engagement rather than issuing a news release? Why does a particular announcement lack sufficient news value? Does our spokesperson need professional media training before an interview, or will coaching suffice for this opportunity? Why is the team targeting one journalist publication instead of another? Why might a contributed article produce greater long-term value than a company announcement?
There should be no adversarial tone to these conversations. A strong agency should welcome questions and educate clients about strategy, media relations, journalist expectations, messaging, reputation management, and the ancillary benefits of PR. This is particularly important when clients are learning the difference between earned media and owned or paid content/media.
A PR agency can identify appropriate journalists, develop compelling story angles, prepare executives, conduct disciplined outreach, follow up, and build media relationships. It cannot always entice a journalist or media outlet to cover a story but should be strategic and convincing when dealing with producers, editors, and writers/contributors.
Agencies also have an obligation to tell clients when something is unlikely to be newsworthy or when a pitch is not working as planned.
A new website, conference appearance, or organizational milestone may be important internally without warranting broader media outreach. An experienced PR firm should explain why and determine whether that development could become part of a stronger story involving an industry trend, original research (i.e., proprietary data), customer results, timely commentary, or an executive’s subject matter expertise. This discipline matters. Clients should expect counsel, not automatic agreement. Sometimes the agency provides the most value by recommending a different approach.
4. Don’t Expect Your Agency to Read Your Mind
A PR firm cannot leverage information it does not have.
Clients need to continuously provide their agency with upcoming news, proprietary data, access to subject matter experts, customer trends, research, partnerships, milestones, conferences, leadership developments, successful initiatives, and other information that may generate communications opportunities. This should begin during the onboarding process.
The agency needs to understand why customers choose the organization, what differentiates its products or services, which industry developments affect its business, what competitors are communicating, what challenges customers (or other stakeholders) are experiencing, and where executives possess expertise that journalists and other stakeholder groups value.
Clients should also share information that may never become public. Potential litigation, regulatory developments, personnel changes, operational problems, IP-related issues, customer concerns, competitive pressures, and other sensitive issues may have significant communications or reputational implications. Giving the agency advance notice allows it to prepare rather than react.
Media opportunities can move quickly. If a reporter contacts an agency at 10 a.m. seeking an expert for a 2 p.m. deadline, responding two days later means the opportunity will likely be lost.
Access to people is just as important as access to information. Executives and subject matter experts should participate in strategy discussions and make themselves available for appropriate media opportunities. Clients new to PR should therefore identify media-ready executives and subject matter experts early in the relationship and establish a process for reaching them quickly.
They should also provide the agency with substantive information those experts can discuss. There is a significant difference between pitching, “Our CEO can discuss employee retention,” and offering proprietary findings from 500 employers, accompanied by an executive who can explain what those findings mean.
The client needs to provide some of the raw material, while the agency develops and positions stories.
5. Demonstrate Candor and Responsiveness
Client service is client service regardless of industry. If something is not sitting right, allow the agency to address it. Responsiveness enables a PR program to capitalize on timely opportunities. Candor allows the relationship to improve over time.
Clients should proactively and respectfully communicate what is working, what could improve, and what would make the relationship more productive. This becomes particularly important for organizations that have never worked with an outside PR firm because assumptions about responsibilities, communication styles, reporting, or responsiveness may differ.
Active listening should accompany that candor. Ask why the agency made a recommendation and understand the reasoning before deciding how to proceed.
Candor must work in both directions. Clients should expect the agency to speak up when expectations are unrealistic, a spokesperson needs additional preparation, an announcement is unlikely to generate coverage, a proposed message creates reputational concerns, or the communications program needs to change direction.
Responsiveness is equally important. PR operates on media deadlines as well as the client’s internal timetable. A strong story can lose relevance while waiting two weeks for approval. A journalist may move to another source if an executive cannot respond quickly.
Clients should establish approval protocols early. Determine who can approve pitches, news releases, contributed articles, executive commentary, and sensitive statements. Establish who has final authority when internal opinions differ and create an expedited process for breaking news and time-sensitive media opportunities.
Three Things PR Agencies Should Do for Clients New to Public Relations
Clients have substantial responsibilities in making an engagement work, but the burden does not fall on them. Agencies working with first-time PR clients have an additional obligation to educate, communicate, and demonstrate how public relations supports organizational priorities.
1. Make the Client’s Goals Agency Imperatives
Client goals should drive agency recommendations. If a PR agency does not ask about organizational objectives during its earliest discussions with a prospective client, that is a clear warning sign.
Understanding communications goals alone is not sufficient. The agency needs to know what the organization itself is trying to accomplish. Is it entering a new market? Building a category? Attracting customers? Improving reputation? Establishing executives as authorities? Supporting fundraising or advocacy? Differentiating itself from competitors?
Those priorities determine the communications strategy. This requires agencies to learn the client’s business before attempting to tell its story. A website, company overview, and product/service brochure or PowerPoint deck are not enough.
The PR team should conduct substantive onboarding discussions with leadership, marketing and communications executives, subject matter experts, and others who understand the organization’s customers and marketplace. It needs to learn why customers support the organization, what problems it solves, where competitors are positioned, which external developments affect the business, and where executives possess distinctive expertise.
This knowledge frequently uncovers better stories than the client initially planned to promote.
The client’s goals become the agency’s imperatives, not the other way around. Therefore, the agency should then translate organizational priorities into communications objectives, establish realistic expectations, recommend appropriate strategies, and define how results will be evaluated. It should create an actionable timeline for execution that the client is engaged with and regularly updated on.
2. Teach First-Time Clients How to Leverage PR Results
Clients new to working with PR firms may assume the value of a media placement ends when an article appears or an interview airs. Agencies need to show them otherwise.
Earned media coverage provides valuable third-party credibility, but it can also become an asset across other communications and marketing channels. A strong media placement may be shared through LinkedIn and other social platforms, email communications, the organization’s website, sales presentations, conference materials, employee communications, executive biographies, donor communications for nonprofits, and other appropriate channels. The same principle applies to news releases, thought leadership articles, proprietary research, executive commentary, awards, podcast appearances, and speaking engagements.
PR assets may also support SEO, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and online reputation management by expanding the amount of credible third-party and owned information associated with an organization and its experts.
This has become more significant as stakeholders evaluate organizations through search engines, AI-generated summaries, social media, reviews, earned media coverage, and other digital sources.
An agency therefore should not simply report that a placement occurred. It should explain how the client can extend the value of that result. For example, after a strong executive interview, the organization might share the article with customers and employees, feature it on its website, distribute it through social channels, provide it to the sales team, incorporate it into grant proposals, and use the subject as the basis for additional thought leadership opportunities.
Clients hiring a PR firm for the first time should learn early that earned media is not an isolated activity. Properly leveraged, it becomes part of a broader communications effort that may strengthen credibility, reputation, stakeholder engagement, and digital discoverability.
3. Conduct High-Level Quarterly Reviews and Brainstorming Sessions
PR programs should not run on autopilot. Quarterly, agency leadership and the account team should meet internally to evaluate the program at a high level: What is working? What isn’t? Where are results strongest? Where are our missed opportunities? What needs to be adjusted? What new ideas should be developed?
Then bring those ideas to the client. The review should assess progress against the objectives established at the beginning of the engagement. This might include media response, quality of coverage, priority message inclusion, thought leadership progress, competitive activity, executive participation, search performance, emerging industry developments, upcoming announcements, and potential reputation issues.
Brainstorming should be collaborative rather than unilateral. The client brings knowledge of its organization, customers, industry, products, and upcoming developments. The agency brings an outside perspective on media interests, stakeholder concerns, communications opportunities, reputation, and positioning.
Together, the teams should ask specific questions. What industry trends can our experts address? What proprietary information could become a story? Which executives have expertise we have not fully leveraged? What is happening during the next six months that requires advance communications planning? What have we learned from media response? Which strategies should we expand, modify, or discontinue?
This quarterly discipline keeps the program proactive and strategic.
Rather than waiting for a client to hand the agency its next announcement, both teams continually identify opportunities, evaluate results, and improve the program.
How to Build a Strong PR Agency Relationship From the Start
The strongest client-agency relationships require accountability from both parties. Clients need to give their PR agency a seat at the table, establish goals collaboratively, ask questions, provide information and expertise, and communicate candidly and responsively.
Agencies need to understand and adopt the client’s organizational goals, educate first-time clients about how PR works and how results can be leveraged, and continuously evaluate and improve the program.
Neither side can fully compensate when the other fails to meet these responsibilities. Establishing these expectations at the beginning gives first-time PR clients and their agencies a stronger foundation for generating meaningful earned media, establishing thought leadership, managing reputation, improving digital discoverability, and building credibility with the stakeholder groups that matter most.
Leading National PR Agency Credentials
Rosica Communications is a nationally leading strategic nonprofit PR firm specializing in media training, thought leadership development, crisis communications, social media strategy, SEO, AI search marketing (AEO), content marketing, and integrated marketing communications. Our team works with mission-driven organizations and companies to strengthen their reputations, elevate thought leadership, and improve online discoverability through media relations, content marketing, crisis communications, conference marketing, SEO, and AI search strategies.
For a comprehensive PR and thought leadership measurement platform, Rosica developed the Thought Leadership Matrix™, which assesses more than 20 indicators to benchmark influence and authority over time.
Learn more by scheduling a call with Chris Rosica, CEO and president of Rosica Communications: https://www.rosica.com/contact/
