The Importance of Patience in PR

May 6, 2022

Written by Emma Whiten | ~ 5 min read

When people think about public relations, they often think of a fast-paced industry filled with phone calls, interviews, and immediate responses. What they do not see are countless hours of hard work, building relationships, nurturing leads, and building awareness for clients in a process that often takes months or even years to establish.

What we see on the surface of PR – the phone calls, interviews, inspiring quotes, and media mentions – is the result of a long process and detailed strategy. Public Relations is an industry built on patience, strategy, and a LOT of emails.

What does patience have to do with it?

When we refer to patience in PR, we are referring to the time required to make a splash in the news or media. Unless you happen to have a flashy client, someone with a big name or project that attracts media easily, you will have to spend time building relationships with specific industry contacts and editors.

Every day, Journalists and media publications are inundated with pitches from businesses, entrepreneurs, and PR professionals. For a journalist to consider one pitch amongst the hundreds, a pitch must align with their specific content and audience, and it MUST be newsworthy.

For this reason, public relations is never a race, but a marathon. Anything pitched quickly is often done without the proper time, research, and relationships required to make it stick. For these reasons, patience plays a large role because it enables PR Professionals to slow down and take the time to connect with and better understand media contacts. Over time, this slow approach helps you better build relationships and eventually help establish your client(s) as a reliable source of expertise.

It was through this slow and steady PR approach that the Jelly Marketing PR team was able to establish multiple thought-leadership pieces and interviews for our client, Joseph Richard Group (JRG).

Coverage in the earlier stages of JRG’s PR:

Despite being an innovator in the BC restaurant and hospitality industry, the JRG team had yet to land media coverage that highlighted the team’s leadership rather than just their services, with former coverage heavily focused on brand expansions and new locations. While these media mentions are fantastic, they did not meet the JRG’s goal of establishing the company as an industry innovator and its CEO, Ryan Moreno, as a leader in the hospitality space.

To better meet JRG’s goals, the Jelly team targeted specific publications with the intent to slowly build strong relationships that would better increase JRG’s future chance of media mentions. By consistently sharing JRG news and events with these publications, our PR team increased awareness of the JRG brand over time. These pitches did not always result in immediate content, but they did introduce an opportunity to position Ryan as an active and reliable industry member. This consistency in pitches and news allowed the JRG name to build recognition amongst these specific editors and as a result, earn mentions over time. Eventually, the pitches had gained enough notoriety that Ryan was seen as a reliable source for publications and he began to see an increase in interview and article opportunities.

Coverage in the last 6 months of JRG’s PR:

The key ingredient in PR is patience, paired with persistence. Not every pitch will have an exciting announcement or media-grabbing subject line. As PR professionals, it is our role to establish connections and create a narrative for the stories we share that resonate with our intended audience. While it takes time, effort, and consistency to build awareness for these stories, we can do so by ensuring the right messaging for the right publication. So start planning your strategies now and begin the long but effective road from pitch to feature.