Top Public Relations Firms in Tampa

Public Relations Services in Tampa

At BoardroomPR we carry out and coordinate press announcements, secure guest columns and acquire certified commentary from your key partners and executives to garner consistent media coverage in top-tier consumer, trade, and business newspapers, lifestyle magazines, professional newsletters, journals, blogs, online sources and broadcast news outlets. In order to help you in achieving your PR-Marketing goals, we’ll apply the following strategies and methods as your Tampa Public Relations Agency. We also serve Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, and Sumter Counties.

Tampa Public Relations Campaign Services

As a public relations firm, we customize a public relations plan that is tailored to your goals. It draws on a wide range of services that puts you closer to your customers, contacts, prospective clients, referral sources, news media, online, and social media audiences. Your team at BoardroomPR sits with you to develop a strategy that draws on our three decades of experience.

That approach in hand, we guide you on which of our public relations offerings the ones best suit your goals and needs. Then, we initiate and coordinate an integrated plan that uses traditional, social, and digital channels to secure a high-level presence for your organization, products, projects, issues, and execs:

Thought Leadership:

Byline articles enable a business and its staff the chance to write in newspapers, trade journals, and newsletters while simultaneously establishing them as thought leaders in their field. The publicists at BoardroomPR will collaborate with you to create solid and timely story concepts, have them professionally written and/or edited, and submit them to important Tampa media sources. The published content has the potential to gain more visibility on social media, your website, and in handouts in your marketing materials.

Media Relations:

BoardroomPR will implement a systematic, proactive, and opportunistic approach to generating media coverage through various strategies and tactics.

Press Releases:

A press release can be an effective method for distributing crucial business news. A lawsuit, a new trend, an expansion, a new product or service offering, a recent transaction, a major new hire, or an award could all appear in the Tampa news. These are all excellent, significant points you’ll want to communicate to your current and potential clients, and possibly the general public. Many seasoned writers at BoardroomPR have experience crafting for the media and are skilled at creating captivating pitches that editors and reporters will find interesting. We will compile a targeted media distribution list of reporters and editors who will be interested in your message using our personal media connections. We follow up with Tampa reporters immediately after sending out the announcements to ensure your news is published.

Expert Sourcing:

We strive to get your executives and subject-matter experts mentioned in stories and credited as knowledgeable, expert sources that match the company’s key areas of expertise alongside press releases. Our customers are frequently interviewed for news articles about the economy and business trends. The company and its key executives can increase their credibility and brand awareness by being featured in well-known newspapers and on television in Tampa.

Trend Stories:

We are not just about securing coverage through press releases. We will work with your team to identify industry and market trends we can leverage with our reporter contacts, including you as a primary source.

Feature Stories:

We also pitch clients, their companies and leadership for feature stories in print, broadcast, and online media.

Community Outreach:

Giving back to the community is another excellent way to promote your business at low cost, while also achieving the objectives of assisting others and forming new connections. The communities served by this Tampa marketing agency receive substantial backing from our senior management team. We can assist in directing your company to the “right” locations to forge the strongest business ties. We will design a personalized community engagement plan for the business based on the causes you care about and the types of people you want to meet.

New Business and Relationship Development:

We are skilled and attentive in introducing our clients to each other with the objective of cultivating relationships or conducting PR-marketing in Tampa. We frequently introduce people at an event, during a lunch meeting, or during a presentation for ongoing education.

Copywriting:

As an established Tampa public relations firm, we assist you in choosing the best locations in Tampa for your advertisements once you have a logo, tagline, and messaging you are familiar with. With newspapers, journals, magazines, and perhaps radio and television networks, we assist in establishing a budget, frequency, and timing as well as negotiating the final rates. Your ads, brochures, direct mail, website copy, and blog posts will be written by a highly skilled staff of talented writers at BoardroomPR.

Industry Relations:

With our public relations and marketing experience, your trade show participation will pay off with new connections, and ideally, new business, whether it’s a new trade show booth, event selection, or marketing strategy.

E-Newsletters:

e-Newsletters have established themselves as a mainstay in the messaging spectrum. BoardroomPR can handle any request, whether it’s for a corporate or firmwide issue, a single-item advisory, an update, or customized versions for specific people’s goods or services. Through A/B testing and statistics, we apply our expertise and best practices to make sure that your campaign is distributed in the most advantageous way possible.

Crisis Management and Online Reputation Management:

Serving big corporations, independent business owners, nonprofit organizations, lawyers, lobbyists, and public sector organizations, we are one of Florida’s top crisis management practices. Investigations, lawsuits, land-use disputes, natural and man-made disasters, environmental problems, crimes, accidents, public health emergencies, bid disputes, investigations, and allegations of wrongdoing are just a few of the critical, high-stakes circumstances we react to. Crises can strike businesses at any moment and from any direction. Most disasters can be prevented by you, but your crisis management company should help you handle the fallout.  When confronted with a sudden, significant, and unpredictable crisis, our PR agency’s time-tested strategies enable businesses, firms, and individuals to react rationally and successfully.

A complete web reputation management program is available from BoardroomPR. We keep an eye on online forums, social media, and review sites to find out what customers are saying about your company. We also analyze your profiles and hundreds of important online datasets. Your profile will be immediately added to at least five new databases each month, which will help your SEO over time.

Media Training:

Once it is decided who the spokesperson is, BoardroomPR will give them an introduction to media training. Additionally, our media affairs specialists will get you and your staff ready for each interview. To reduce the chance of any surprises, we coordinate ahead of time with Tampa reporters. Advanced crisis management, communications strategy, and on-camera instruction are all services provided by BoardroomPR for your company’s spokespersons.

Other PR Tools:

Our public relations firm’s services include Expert Sourcing that puts your executives in the news as subject-matter experts. They become integral to attention-getting news stories and are cited as knowledgeable, credible sources that align with the company’s key areas of expertise. In many instances, your top people will be interviewed on news stories regarding trends that most affect your organization. BoardroomPR’s efforts help build your brand and raise the professional standing of your leaders. Reacting to Breaking News: BoardroomPR will your firm and its professionals to comment on important news angles related to your business.

Reporter Relationship Development:

As one of the top South Florida PR Firms, BoardroomPR will set up meetings and interviews with key reporters based on your priorities to help you develop the media relationships you want and need to ensure your story is properly reported.

Byline Articles & OpEds:

Executives and professionals may establish themselves as thought leaders by publishing byline articles and opinion pieces in newspapers, trade journals, and newsletters. Publicists and consultants from BoardroomPR are adept at developing concepts for guest columns and opinion pieces and placing them in significant Tampa publications. To ensure that the articles are well-written and targeted to the correct audience, we will work closely with you and the editors. Published articles are useful tools to improve the website, blog, and social media platforms and are used as extra marketing materials in reprints and handouts.

Editorial Calendar Monitoring:

In addition to our regular media contacts, BoardroomPR, as a leading Tampa marketing firm, tracks planned stories and special sections on editorial calendars released by Tampa business and trade journals to identify editorial opportunities for its clients. Additionally, we have access to daily story lead delivery files. Our clients are frequently suggested as reliable sources for such narratives.

Speaking Opportunities/Event Sponsorships:

BoardroomPR will stay up to date on all the major conferences and inform you of opportunities for speaking engagements. Often, but not always, these speaking opportunities require a sponsorship, which we are happy to negotiate on your behalf.

1) What local and local market media should a Florida PR firm target for its clients?

There are a number of print, broadcast and online media outlets that are critical when you select a PR firm. Among the highest priorities are the following

a) Knowledge and contacts in the major Florida newspapers, magazines, and portals. Florida-based companies need PR firms that can generate media in the Sun-Sentinel, Miami Herald, Tampa Times, Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Naples Daily News, Lakeland Ledger, Florida Times-Union, etc. Without the ability to get into the major dailies, a PR company cannot be successful. Whether it is the business page, city desk, community or opinion-editorial page, there are numerous opportunities to have your news published in the form of a feature article, news brief, byline article, letter to the editor or OpEd.

b) Knowledge and contacts of South Florida, Central Florida, Florida’s Gulf Coast, Southwest Florida and national trade journals. Companies benefit tremendously if they are visible in their own trade/industry media. Construction marketing should be in Construction Executive. Restaurants owners should be in Restaurants and Hospitality, medical professionals must be in South Florida Hospital News or Florida Health Industries while real estate practitioners would appreciate being in stories in The Real Deal, Florida Realtor or Southeast Commercial Real Estate.

The benefit for Florida’s for-profit and not-for-profit businesses to achieve PR coverage in key journals is the ability to stay on the radar of your important customers, prospects, members and the community at large.

c) Knowledge and contacts of major market Florida TV and radio stations and their digital departments. Awareness through electronic media is extremely valuable and providing opportunities on television and radio reaps enormous benefits. From local stations such as WPLG, WFLA, WINK, NBC6, WLRN and WIOD radio to network news including CNN and NPR, these outlets can produce a tremendous reaction.

Knowledgeable PR companies in South Florida, Central Florida, Gulf Coast, and Southwest Florida should have key contacts such as news directors, assignment editors, TV and radio reporters, and special project and segment producers so they can call on them when they have clients news to pitch.

Also, most stations have locally produced shows that local Florida PR agencies can book guests who have a story that might fit the shows’ format and audience.

In addition to having a great story with a visual angle, today, most of Florida’s TV and radio stations have blogs, online newsrooms and active social media platforms they can call on for news items that may or may not make the evening, afternoon or morning broadcast.

2) How can a company evaluate the Return on Investment (ROI) on their traditional Florida Public Relations campaigns?

Public relation is an essential element in a business’s marketing plans. A Fort Lauderdale PR, Tampa PR or Orlando PR firm may work in tandem with a company’s in-house Florida communications and marketing team and possibly other marketing vendors such as graphic designers, digital ad agencies, web developers and out-of-town strategic communications departments. Or, a PR firm can provide all the elements in one place. Once a campaign unfolds, clients will recognize increased visibility through various elements — media, word of mouth, greater interest in the company or business and a general acknowledgment of improved awareness. ROI is difficult to determine but easy to feel.

3) What PR skillsets should a business or not-for-profit organization is looking for when selecting a PR agency?

The best Florida PR firms combine talents in various fields. Seasoned public relations professionals who may be former print, digital or television journalists have many of the top PR skillsets such as written and verbal communications skills and excellent relationship development talents as well. Recent grads from the University of Florida, FIU, UCF, FSU or University of Miami might be a good fit along with a firm’s experienced publicists. Professionals with graphic design, website management, social media, and video production skills are all important. Most essential, however, is getting a team with a passion for providing the best opportunities for its clients, people who will make the investment in learning your company and the industries you compete in.

4) What Florida cities are most important for a PR firm to be based on?

A good firm with excellent contacts can do business throughout Florida. It is often valuable to have permanent PR staff on the ground in the major cities including Orlando, Tampa, Naples, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. Nothing can take the place of strong media and community relationships.

5) How important is hyper-local media in a Florida PR campaign?

Hyperlocal media is tremendously important. Most Florida businesses, small and large, gain valuable exposure in media where their headquarters are located as well as other cities and towns where they have other facilities, people and customers. Prominence in glossy magazines such as Plantation Lifestyles, Weston Gazette, Sunrise Forum and The Parklander, Boca Magazine, Coral Gables Magazine, Orlando, Tampa, Naples or Florida Trend magazine can work wonders to help improve business throughout your Florida markets. There is a wide variety of local publications in towns such as Davie, Cooper City, Lighthouse Point, Pompano Beach and the City of Fort Lauderdale that offer wonderful opportunities for increased visibility. Throughout West and Central Florida, dozens of hyper-local papers are looking for good news stories. North Florida and the Panhandle also have a good assortment of media opportunities. The circulations may be smaller than the dailies, but the readership is often more attentive.

6) How long should a PR campaign take to begin seeing results?

Clients vary and so do their campaigns. In busy metropolitan areas such as Orlando PR, Tampa, Miami PR and Fort Lauderdale PR, a good campaign should last at least six months and it is best to give it a year to gain traction and momentum. Then continuation is vital – start and stop campaigns can immediately dissolve the progress. In smaller areas such as Naples PR, Ocala, the Keys, a four – to – eight month program could be successful to penetrate the media and the mindset. Again, continuity is important.

7) Can a PR firm help with corporate networking?

Absolutely. Lawyers, for example, can be guided into the right committee of the Florida Bar Association or Broward Bar, Hillsborough or Orange County Bar or other regional association. A good statewide Florida PR firm will provide insight for a human resource professional to join SHRM – The Society for Human Resource Management or HRACB – Human Resources Association of Broward County. PR firms know organizations for accountants such as SFAFP – The South Florida Association for Financial Professionals. Public relations professionals guide their clients in the right direction. Hiring a local Florida PR agency will help make their connections your connections.

8) Can a PR firm help establish community relations or outreach campaign?

Similar to professional organizations, good PR firms find the right match for clients in the civic and charitable arena. Whether it is joining the Heart of Florida United Way or Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County or Legal Aid that does so much good in Florida, there is a myriad of organizations that a client can be advised about where they share a passion for the group and a knowledge of the cause.

Many Florida entrepreneurs and executives and their employees enjoy giving back to their respective local communities by supporting local charities, charity events such as walks, runs and bikeathons, galas, fishing and golf tournaments and other types of fundraisers. You not only give back to these excellent charitable causes, but your company’s reputation also benefits from being viewed as active in local causes.

Another way to channel your company’s outreach is to join committees and boards of directors of local charities.

9) How involved does a business have to be in order for its PR to be effective?

PR Firms cannot work in a vacuum. But if you are a Florida Business, looking for excellent PR, a good firm can move forward with weekly calls and general emails. Meetings are important to maintain facetime but not without a good reason. As we say in the PR business, public relations is a participation sport. The more involved you and your team are, the more impact your Florida public relations campaign will be. It also promotes employee morale and helps build brand and reputation.

10) Where can I learn more about various firms?

O’Dwyer’s Directory is an excellent place to get a general knowledge of PR firms. But equally easy is to google Public Relations firms within your geographic area, say Fort Lauderdale Public Relations, and find out who comes up. The ones that rank high are taking the time to make sure their websites are easily located – that kind of attention to their own business is important – it’s a sign they’ll do similar work for you. There are other lists of top South Florida, Central Florida, Tampa and Jacksonville PR agencies in places like local American City Business Journals, Florida Trend, the Daily Business Review’s “best PR Firms,” and by getting word-of-mouth recommendations from people you respect.