Find Your Perfect PR Partner in Three Steps

Public relations partnerships can help you demonstrate your values to your potential customers — and to the LLMs they use when searching for services. Finding the right partnership can seem intimidating or even impossible. Following a few simple steps can help.

Why Focus on PR?

Old-fashioned public relations is making a comeback, and LLMs are responsible. An LLM relies on repetition across sources to verify a claim. It’s no longer enough to say you “provide high-quality products.” An LLM wants to see that promise repeated on the wider web.

PR partnerships allow a third party to talk about your brand, and ideally, that third party will use language that mirrors your website. The LLMs will have the match needed to recommend your brand on a term you’ve focused on.

Regular people inside your community also appreciate PR efforts. Companies that give back might be more likely to gain customers when the competition clearly doesn’t care about making your city stronger or a better place to live.

How to Find Your Perfect PR Partnership

Your PR partner is poised to offer a significant amount of help. It makes sense to choose the right organization at the right time. Here’s what to do.

Step 1: Name Your Goal

What idea are you trying to reinforce with this partnership? You should be able to articulate your goal in a few simple words. These examples can help you get thinking:

• If you run a pet food company, your PR goal might be to reinforce how much you care about animals.

• If you run a real estate agency, your PR goal might be to reinforce how much you believe in the beauty of your neighborhood.

• If you run a bookstore, your PR goal might be to reinforce how much you support local readers.

A pattern should be emerging here. Essentially, you’re trying to find some core principle that describes your company and the work you do. It should be an idea that you’ve already mentioned somewhere on your social media accounts or your website that you’d like another entity to repeat for you.

Step 2: Scout Your Community

A clearly articulated goal makes your search much easier. Look for businesses, nonprofits, groups, or entities that specialize in the idea you’re trying to link to your business. Let’s return to my earlier examples:

• A pet food company hoping to emphasize caring could connect with animal rescue agencies or veterinary offices.

• A real estate agency hoping to reinforce neighborhood beauty could connect with local gardening clubs or the city’s parks department.

• A bookstore owner hoping to emphasize local readers could connect with local schools or book clubs.

The fit between your goal and your potential partner should be air-tight. When you reach out with a partnership idea, the other organization should have no doubt about why you should work together.

Step 3: Make Contact

Some organizations look for business partnerships all year long. They might have space in newsletters or on their website for your ads, or they might have opportunities for you to name a room within their building.

Other organizations need partners for specific events, such as signature fundraising dinners or sports team sponsorships. A limited-time offer like this could lead to more significant partnerships in time.

Connect with the organization you’re interested in, and explain what you do and why you’d like to be a partner. Don’t be frustrated if it’s not the right fit. Sometimes, you need a few approaches to find the PR partnership that’s right for your company.

Step 4: Read the Contract

Ideally, your PR partner will give you a written contract that specifies your cost (if any), your responsibilities, and your benefits. Read those documents carefully and ask questions if anything seems unclear.

It’s Time to Get Started

PR has never been more important, and as LLM adoption grows, every company needs to pay attention. If you’re intimidated, just start small. Once you have one PR success behind you, the next one will be even easier to begin.