What is our philosophy of how best to make PR for professional services organisations work?

The Da Vinci approach to PR for professional services organisations is based around the philosophy that these organisations should seek above all to promote the expertise, experience and track record of their senior professionals. After all, it is precisely that expertise, experience and track record which are responsible for the organisation’s success and which win it relationships with new clients. We believe that by spreading the word about this professional capability, the PR campaign can play an overwhelmingly important role in your business development.

There are several practical ways to `spread the word’ in this way, and Da Vinci Public Relations has experience of all of them. We are adept, for example, at writing and placing news releases for professional services organisations, arranging meetings between journalists and senior professionals, writing up case studies, getting professionals to speak on TV/radio or at conferences, and so on. However, in general the most effective method of all is the research, drafting, finalisation and publication of full-length (c 1000-word) authoritative `thoughtpiece’ articles which discuss some crucially important issue likely to be of interest to existing and potential clients of your organisation and which are published under the name of a senior professional at your organisation. We in effect play the role of ghost-writers of these articles, and also take on the responsibility of placing them in media. But of course, no article or any other editorial submission is ever made to any media without you fully approving the submission.

Over the past 15 years, we have researched, drafted, finalised and placed literally thousands of full-length articles under the attribution (i.e. `by-line’) of our senior people at our professional services organisation clients. The extent of the promotional benefit our clients have won from this coverage has been prodigious.

Why are these articles - and PR generally - such a good promotional tool for professional services organisations? There are six main reasons:

1. In a full-length article it is possible to communicate a great deal of information relating to your professional services organisation’s expertise.
2. The entire article represents coverage i.e. the organisation is not limited to a brief mention of a sentence or a paragraph.
3. In exchange for the coverage the newspaper or journal will include a one-paragraph account of your organisation, your phone number, e-mail address and website details.
4. The editor of the newspaper or journal will not have the expertise necessary to write the article and will consequently be only too happy to rely on the expert under whose name the article is published. In many cases a relationship can be started with the newspaper or journal which can foster the publication of numerous articles over a period of time.
5. The article can sometimes be syndicated: that is, published in more than one medium at once.
6. No fee is paid to the medium for publishing the article. The only cost will be the cost of the time we spend on researching, drafting, finalising and placing the article. This makes the entire venture extremely cost-effective for you.’