Pay for Performance: PR for today’s economy
The tightened marketing budgets of today’s companies are dictating a return to value and accountability in PR. This is the reason Dick Grove founded his company 11 years ago and he is still going strong. The unique PR agency aptly called, INK, Inc. is a pay for performance firm in that they only charge clients if they actually get coverage for them. Dick Grove has spent over twenty years working for large traditional PR firms on both coasts before starting his own firm. He launched INK, Inc. in a return to what he calls “old fashioned accountability…being paid for accomplishing a measurable result, not just for the effort.”
According to Dick Grove, the INK, Inc. businesss model is to never charge by the hour and never have a meter running with their clients. Grove says he started INK with the idea that clients deserved real tangible results and the agency should share in the financial risk until it’s achieved.
In today’s economic downturn, even the biggest and the best are reluctant to take risks. The old model—big retainers tied to hourly fees regardless of results—just won’t fly for most companies now. “Let’s face it. When money gets scarce, the finance and accounting side becomes more involved; and in many cases PR budgets are the first to be trimmed.” says Grove. “You need to demonstrate that the dollars spent on PR are tied to a real value proposition and not a tap dance.”
This trimming back or even total elimination of PR budgets in an economic downturn is another irony Grove finds difficult to understand. “This is absolutely the best and most opportune of times to be shouting, not whispering, and getting your message out. That is not risk no matter how you spell it and no matter who tells you.” Grove preaches. “A company can achieve a double positive hit in doing so…. because the channel is less crowded, the message content will be clearer; and bonus points are earned with your audiences for bold action rather than timidity.”
Value and accountability don’t exactly sound like earth-shattering new age concepts. But in the world of public relations, often more famous for colorful monthly activity reports than results, they are. Dick Grove recognizes in some PR circles his “pay for performance” concept is still considered blasphemous. But times are changing and those circles are shrinking.
“We’ve found that tough economic times tend to make us and our model more attractive and our phones ring more,” says Grove. “Clients are changing, the media is changing. And we, as public relations practitioners, have got to change as well.”
