We all have rogue topics we weirdly know too much about, particularly when working in PR – we become experts in our clients’ sectors. The longer we work with brands too, the more our expertise, and random knowledge, grows.
Admittedly, some of them are cooler than others. Take Dani for example – she’s our resident expert in birds, and will give Chris Packham a run for his money. Kerry can reel off the best haircare products to keep your locks looking lush; Beth knows far too much about toilets and bathrooms from a client at her previous agency; Laura knows everything there is to know about housebuilders and what Fay doesn’t know about nematodes and slugs isn’t worth knowing. And Holly happens to be our in-house lawnmower expert…
She knows her self-propelled from a rear roller, and a scarifier from an aerator. She can reel off lawn care tips for any season and she’ll talk for hours about the benefits of cordless over petrol!
While it may not be the coolest claim, for Holly, lawnmowers are her second language. And with good reason! She’s represented six lawnmower brands in her career, and has worked with Cobra for a decade, even having handled its UK launch back in 2012. So it’s fair to say she knows a thing or two about mowers. Over the years she’s managed many, many product launches, written endless expert commentary pieces and arranged for hundreds of mowers to be sent to product reviewers’ gardens for trials. She’s even raced mowers with Olympians and been caught pushing one around central London – don’t ask!
It’s a natural part of PR.
At Honest we pride ourselves on becoming an extension of our clients’ marketing teams, not just a bolt-on that pops up every now and again. As part of this, we get to know every detail about the brand, the business and the products. Over time this amounts to quite the wealth of knowledge and means we can quickly turn around press enquiries, securing endless coverage and knowing exactly what journalists want.
It’s the speed we can turn things around that means we build strong relationships with journalists, who know they can rely on us, which in turns means they regularly come to Honest when pulling together their features. So it’s a win-win for them and our clients. It’s also this that means journalists are happy to share some lovely feedback about working with Honest, like the ones below.
Building this knowledge over time
The perks of working with brands for a long period of time are endless. Not only do we get to build up knowledge that helps to inform everything we do and write for our clients, but it also means we get to build relationships with external parties on their behalf. With brand knowledge behind us, we can work quickly and efficiently, with the answers at our fingertips without having to hassle busy marketing managers with small enquiries.
It means our responses to the media are informed and we know the best product to put forward. It means our commentary is insightful, and not just surface-level content that has been quickly put together. It means everything we do comes back to the brand and company aims.
Most of all, it means we care and we want our clients to grow and succeed just as much as they do.
