PR Insights, Trends
& Expert Advice

I recently joined Peter Woolfolk on the Public Relations Review Podcast to talk about Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO, and what it means for how brands get found.

Most consumer brands treat the calendar as background noise. They know the holidays are coming, they line up a promo or two and they move on. Meanwhile, the sharpest brands in your industry are booking press coverage months ahead because they understand something most of their competitors miss. The calendar is the most predictable pitching engine in PR, and hardly anyone plans around all of it.

I sat down with Todd Perry on the PR360 podcast for a wide-ranging talk about building an agency, where companies go wrong with PR, and how AI is changing the way brands get found.

There is a number almost no PR agency wants you to ask about, and it is the one that tells you the most: how long do your clients actually stay?

By the time a buyer books a call with your sales team, most of the decision is already made.

Most PR programs are built to win over one person: the buyer. That makes sense. Customers pay the bills. But if you run a B2B company or you are scaling toward your next round, the buyer is not the only person reading your coverage. Analysts are reading it. Investors are reading it. The partner you have chased for two quarters is reading it too.

No one wants their first crisis communications conversation to happen in the middle of a crisis. By then, the story may already be public, the screenshots may be spreading, and the only options left are the ones you wish you didn’t have to choose from. Crisis PR should never be treated as an afterthought or something to figure out once the pressure is already on. The smarter move is to have the right partner in place long before anything goes wrong, because crises tend to arise without warning.

The Washington Post cut roughly a third of its 800-person newsroom in early 2026, closing entire desks and bureaus in a single round of layoffs. That is not an outlier; it's the pattern. The reporter who covered your industry last year may not have a job this year, and the desk that ran your last story may no longer exist.

You are sold on the idea of PR. The budget is sitting there. So why has the contract been on your desk for three weeks?