Public Relations is one of those jobs that no one seems to understand unless you’re in the industry. We often get asked what we do, or have people assume the job is a strange sub-branch of journalism, influencer marketing or publicity. To get the full overview of PR, you can read our PR 101 blog post here.
PR is a little bit of all of the above, with many extra fun add-ins. To simplify what we do (or just have something in writing to show our friends when they ask what we do, again), here is a rundown of what a day looks like working in a Public Relations Agency.
7:30/8:00am The commute to work begins. Our PR Agency is based in the heart of Surry Hills. Nice and central for all of us, we’re usually on our way to work by now. As lovers and consumers of all things media, we all catch up on the news during our commutes and note down anything that might be relevant to our clients.
8:30am Daily admin. This begins with checking emails, responding to any journalists and clients that have replied over night and starting to plan the day ahead. Our PR agency is very big on to-do lists, so we go over what needs to be done for the day and write out our order of priorities.
9:30am Team Meeting. Every morning, like clockwork we sit down for a meeting to discuss what our days look like. This is a time where we get to discuss what everyone is working on, any exciting client wins and what will be a focus for the week. This meeting keeps us all up to date on the work each person is doing, and affords the chance to ask for help on any tasks.
10:00am Various forms of communication. After our team meeting, the focus of the morning is communicating with clients, media, and stakeholders. Whether it’s writing a press release, developing market research questions, or pitching stories to different, print, online, TV and radio outlets, we make sure these hours are spent focusing on generating coverage that has strong business impact for our clients.
11:00am Coffee Reset. After a couple of hours of ticking items off our to-do lists, we step outside and visit our favourite café, Suzie Q Coffee & Records for a caffeine pick-me-up.
11:15am Meetings. Around mid-morning, the meetings start to kick off. This is the time we get to sit down with clients and discuss how each PR campaign is tracking, make any adjustments to the strategy, discuss wins and brainstorm new ideas. One of the best parts of working in a Public Relations Agency is the close relationships you get to build with clients, and the range of diverse brands and people you come across.
12:00pm Event Planning. One of the best aspects of PR is the client events. These range from launch events for new brands, product testing, sit-down lunches, cocktail events, parties and everything fun in between. So, after we’ve had our meetings, we get to organising client events. This involves choosing the type of event, what media should attend, how the client or product will be included and displayed for launch and all the glitzy details in between.
1:00pm Lunch. Some days lunch involves a seated meal at a new restaurant with clients, other days it involves quickly ducking over to a supermarket to pick up a salad or microwavable meal. On the best days, client meetings happen over lunch while sampling a new client beverage (or two).
1:30pm Event Location Scouting. Whether we stayed in for lunch or we’re exploring a brilliant restaurant in the city, after lunch it’s time to check out venues for upcoming events. Some days this involves one venue that we know is the right fit, other days it can be hours of location hunting. Either way, visiting some of Sydney’s hottest venues isn’t so bad.
3:00pm Brainstorming. By this point in the afternoon, we’re back in the office and once again glued to our computers. To keep our brains alert and running at full speed we love to use this period to get creative, bounce off different ideas and help the person leading the account to think of innovative ideas to for digital PR, events and marketing.
4:00pm Influencer marketing. With the morning focused on marketing, communications and media, we spend a portion of the afternoon on Influencer marketing. From packaging product send outs to invitations for upcoming events, a large aspect of Public Relations is influencer marketing and social media growth for our clients. We get to work with some amazing personalities who add extra flare to our PR campaigns.
5:00pm Coverage Update and WIP Docs. As we start to wrap-up our days, we put together all of the latest coverage updates for our clients, emailing any news articles, influencer posts, television opportunities or radio interviews we have secured. We then update all of the WIP docs to monitor KPIs and evaluate how each campaign is tracking.
5:30pm. Admin. Before setting home (or likely out to another trendy Sydney restaurant, we can’t help ourselves) we finish all admin for the day and prepare our to-do lists for tomorrow. Although exciting media opportunities do come through for our clients around the clock that require immediate attention, in general we pride ourselves on having great work life balance, to keep us working to our best ability all year round.
If you want to find out more, or join our exciting team, please contact info@agent99pr.com. For our open roles, head to our careers page here.
You can also take a look through our website to see what else we get up to.
Agent Emma
