In my past three years Ketner Group, I’ve seen season-after-season of what PR entails, and I’ve come to one staggering conclusion: you simply never know what is going to happen! A big news story interrupts the day? You capture a surprise top-tier media hit? A crisis turned into opportunity? All of these are par for the course in PR.
As an account executive (AE), I’ve seen all sorts of PR surprises firsthand. And I’m hoping this blog can shed some light on what the day-to-day experience looks like if you’re considering stepping into the PR world.
Ketner Group Offers Remote Work, Real Connection
Ketner Group is a remote PR agency, and we focus on retail tech comms. Many of us, including myself, live in Austin, but we don’t meet daily in a designated workspace.
Working remotely can sometimes make it difficult to keep every day fresh, but what I love about Ketner Group is that our culture holds fast and true no matter the distance between us or the time between seeing each other face-to-face.
Another great thing about Ketner Group: our leadership advocates for work-life balance. Have an appointment to get to? No problem. It’s a joy to work within a team that’s flexible and leaves room for life to happen.
Now let’s dive into the day!
An Early Start: Kicking Off the Day With Coffee
If you know anything about Austin, you know the coffee scene is no joke. Everywhere you turn, there’s a new coffee truck or window in the side of a building serving up matcha, coffee, tea or whatever you fancy. My personal favorite spot these days: Terrible Love.
Terrible Love serves a mean latte, it’s in the heart of my favorite Austin neighborhood, Hyde Park, and I have always received great service. The cherry on top? It’s just a couple blocks away from our coworking space.
And after I grab my latte, that’s where I’m headed.
The space is called Switchyards. Catered toward remote workers and designed very intentionally, Switchyards has incredible natural light and comfortable seating! We joined Switchyards after our colleague Kirsty raved about the work club in her hometown of Atlanta.
Another cool aspect of Switchyards’ business model is the sense of community it fosters. After you set up shop there enough times, you’ll start recognizing other regulars.
Morning Productivity: Focusing on Writing and Awards
At Switchyards, I prepare for my day. I use Asana to keep on top of ongoing campaigns and timely tasks, so I launch that project management tool to see what I need to focus on.
First up: drafting awards. As we near the end of the year, that means it is awards season! Given our B2B, retail tech focus, a couple of my clients are submitting for relevant retail-focused awards, and I’ve been helping to draft these submissions. (If you’re ever wondering why submitting for awards is valuable, I recommend giving Jeff Ketner’s blog a read!)
From there, since I’m enjoying the flow of writing, I dive into my next writing-focused task: byline article drafting. As the content lead on one of my client accounts, I focus next on outlining a draft of a byline article for their team.
As lunchtime nears, I pack up and make my way home. Before leaving, I always set my Slack status to “bagel” – my favorite lunchtime treat.
Enjoying My Double Monitor: Locking In on PR Campaigns in the Afternoon
I’ll finish my day at my desk. It’s nice to have my double monitor, comfortable chair and good-smelling candle to inspire productivity. I put my headphones in, hit play on the newest Taylor Swift album and I’m locked in for the afternoon. (My team members know I’m a Swiftie, and I enjoy chatting with them about the latest album in our “Watercooler” Slack channel through the afternoon.)
When folks think of PR, they often think pitching. And it’s true! We’re always ideating and crafting proactive pitch ideas. This becomes a priority task for the afternoon; since the pitch will be sent to journalists tomorrow, I’m taking advantage of my post-lunch, re-energized brain. Once it’s drafted, I send over to the team for feedback and then prepare it for early-morning distribution.
I dive into email to make sure I haven’t missed a priority task from my team or a client. We communicate via email with clients all day, and aim to reply to emails as soon as we can, and stay in touch with our internal team members via Slack.
I wrap up my day focusing on coordinating a newsletter for one of my clients, which they send out monthly to media to keep reporters up to date on the client’s latest news and insights. I’ve been working on it with my colleague, Catherine, who has been integral to the project. We hop on a quick Slack Huddle to discuss some revisions, and I make a note of the campaign status in tomorrow’s agenda for this client’s ongoing PR Update call. The newsletter has been a fun project and change of pace for me!
Watching Our Efforts Bloom Through Collaboration
And just like that, it’s been another successful day of helping my clients achieve PR success! I love to look back and see how far we’ve come with clients.
You don’t always see the fruit of PR efforts immediately, but if you invest the time, sunlight and energy, the flowers will come eventually.
For example, just last month I was glad to be a part of a press release campaign for my client, Birdzi. Their new customer announcement was picked up in nine articles, due in part to my pitching the news with our trade and general business publication contacts.
Curious about how we help retail tech brands tell their stories? Don’t hesitate to drop us a line. And if you’d like to learn more about joining the team, check out our careers webpage.
Austin
