This article by Kyle Flaherty is useful article to share with public relations colleagues who want to getter understand the rational for AR. Kyle evaluates three common ideas about AR: [1] Analysts are just paid-off hacks, PR shouldn’t deal with them, just cut a check; [2] You submit a vendor briefing or just become a client, it’s not rocket science!; [3] You don’t hear about analyst relations because PR people aren’t being slammed by analysts.
It’s a useful article, and well worth recommending to PR colleagues who haven’t made up their minds about analyst relations.
At the risk of alienating my PR colleagues I must say that I believe in many cases, PR companies claim to do AR but actually only set up appointments as they would with a journalist rather than create a real relationship which is the core of AR. The PR companies that have dedicated AR people, such as Jonny at Edelman are the only ones that should be claiming to do AR. Thanks for the article. I will pass it on.