As competition intensifies across the business education landscape, we’ve seen how institutions are increasingly turning to specialised public relations partners like us to elevate their visibility globally.
In general, a professional PR agency can advise on and boost your brand’s external voice, developing strategic campaigns that enhance reputation and engage new audiences in line with your institution’s aims and ambitions. You can expect a range of activities including media coverage across regional, national or industry publications, online media hits, broadcast media, podcasts and much more.
Beyond traditional press relations, PR agencies can often also create tailored content for your websites and social media platforms, ensuring consistent messaging that resonates with your target audience.
An agency like us may also support with events, crisis communications, award submissions, media training, provide speaking opportunities at conferences and even help with your accreditation processes.
Below I have listed some details about what business schools and universities can expect when engaging with a new PR agency during that critical first three months.
The first thing a good PR agency would do is ask you to define your strategic priorities. What are you trying to achieve? Is it increased student numbers, greater research visibility, to attract corporate partners, for promotion of senior leadership, or another reason?
Secondly, the PR agency needs to know which programmes to promote and to which audiences. Should they focus on the MBA, executive education, online programmes, undergraduate, or a mix? Should your agency focus on a specific geographical location like India or the Middle East? Each audience requires distinct messaging and a decent agency will know how to do this.
It’s important that an agency also sets clear expectations as they go hand-in-hand with strategic priorities. This means they will prepare you for what it takes to get coverage in an aspirational list of outlets and what realistic coverage output looks like for your budget. It’s best to discuss the targets outlets at the start of your partnership to make sure your missions are aligned.
For example, to get the best results, do you need to provide an amazing student profile?
Or some really interesting research in order to meet your goals? If your agency can set expectations early in the relationship, then it’s a lot easier for everyone to define success.
It’s understandable (inevitable) that, as an institution, your business school will have long-term, wide-reaching marketing and communications goals prior to hiring external PR support. But, while it’s to be expected that your school will come to any new partnership with some pre-existing strategic targets, when it comes to day-to-day goal-setting this requires expert guidance, not only in ascertaining what’s actually achievable, but also what’ll be most beneficial for your organisation. It’s important these are communicated to your new PR agency.
From setting out day-to-day success markers and agreed-upon deadlines, to allocating tasks to your dedicated team or individual at the agency based upon strategic priorities, there are a number of things that business schools need to give thought to when hiring external PR support.
The Holy Grail, and the reason you hired your PR firm to start with. It will likely take a little while for any new agency to operate at full throttle, but if they’re focused on media relations, then you should see some relevant and compelling coverage (or a promising pipeline of coverage that is secured but hasn’t published yet) in the first 90 days. At BlueSky Education we pride ourselves on fast and impressive results.
Though it’s important to be patient, you’ll know if your investment into PR is working based on the level of activity. And don’t discount small or trade media hits. These can be just as valuable as a hit in The New York Times or the Guardian, especially if they’re in publications that your prospective students read regularly. They can also lay the groundwork for bigger, more mainstream news coverage.
Quality media coverage takes time to develop, and relationship building with journalists is gradual. While the best agencies bring expertise and connections, they cannot guarantee specific coverage outcomes as publishing decisions ultimately rest with editors and journalists. Success requires ongoing collaboration so expect to offer regular communication and prompt feedback on proposed content. Your PR agency will hopefully soon become an extension of your team, but your active involvement ensures campaigns remain authentic and aligned with business goals.
The early stages of working with a PR agency are about building trust and establishing a shared vision. Working with the right PR agency transforms how your institution communicates with the world, driving engagement and building lasting reputations, you should start to see that being shaped and implemented in those first 90 days.
Having studied business at Hull University Business School in the UK and San Diego State University, California State University in the US, Kate’s insider knowledge means that she really understands the inner workings of a business school. She knows the challenges they face and how effective PR and well-crafted content can make the difference to their brand, student recruitment, alumni engagement and sharing research in a way that makes a genuine difference – used by governments, corporate leaders and key decision-makers.