Day in the life of a PR Senior Account Exec

One common phrase that’s always thrown around in PR and by recruiting agencies is that no one day is the same working at an agency. At first, this may seem like a slogan with little meaning, but after a couple of years working in the industry, I’ve found that it’s one of the key benefits of working at an agency. 

Each day, you’re presented with new opportunities and challenges, and find yourself putting your creativity to the test. In this blog, I’ll share what a day in the life of a Senior Account Executive looks like at a London PR agency.  

Navigating the changing media landscape 

In PR, being able to communicate to your client what stories are dominating the headlines, and how the media narrative may be changing in their sector, is a crucial part of the job. Each morning, I make time to run through key media titles to see what stories they’re reporting on today and highlight any which may be relevant to any clients. From there, we discuss as a team how these stories affect our clients, and what information they can contribute to enrich the narrative. 

If there’s a story in the media we can comment on, I’ll then flag this to the client and work with the team to draft and distribute commentary to key journalists offering our clients' opinions on the ongoing story. This can be a hot take, or providing the journalist with the information they need to get a complete picture of what impact the story is having. 

Speaking with media 

Journalists are at the forefront of everything we do in PR, and it’s so important to understand the articles they’re currently working on and what they’re interested in covering in the future. Every day, we’ll reach out to journalists to gauge what stories they’re interested in and look to develop relationships with those who have a particular interest in our clients. 

As an SAE, you play a crucial role in building these relationships for all of your clients - and supporting more junior members of the team to establish relationships with journalists that will help them grow throughout their careers. 

Catching up with clients

A major part of the day is catching up with clients. We work with a range of high growth and scaleup clients, and it’s important to make sure we’re getting face time in to discuss what their business is up to, and how our PR can support them. As an SAE, your role is to understand what challenges your clients are facing and keep them informed about all the ongoing PR activities on the account. This is also a great opportunity to gauge the client's priorities and share items from the news agenda which may interest them. 

The world of public relations is ever-changing

Being an SAE puts you at the heart of each account, and gives you a great opportunity to support managers whilst carving out your role. Every client, every campaign, and indeed every day is different. 

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