How to Choose a PR Resource

Public Relations (PR) is a crucial aspect of any organization’s efforts to improve its brand awareness and reach its target audience. Such a critical component of the overall marketing mix should be handled by experienced professionals who are proactively shifting their own strategy and tactics to embrace the new PR landscape: one where information is more decentralized than ever before and brands have seemingly less control over what people are saying about them.

Organizations, and the PR resources they rely on, must be flexible enough to take advantage of new opportunities while relying on old staples, such as byline articles and press releases, to achieve the maximum reach and impact for their brand. There are more options now than ever before when it comes to utilizing a PR resource to supplement an internal marketing team’s efforts.

The Main Contenders

Here are the two main options to choose from, each with their respective pros and cons:

Hire an employee to do PR.

Benefits:

Bringing the PR function in-house has a variety of benefits, including more control over public relations programs and tighter integration with the rest of the marketing team. It’s potentially easier for an internal hire to tap an organization’s subject matter experts for content, and an internal PR resource can be much more of an expert on the company’s products and services by living and breathing it every day. Hiring a PR resource internally is most likely more cost-effective than hiring an agency, and an internal resource is solely focused on the one organization, which means 100% of their efforts all go to one client (not just the highest paying or most well-known).

Drawbacks:

One potential drawback to bringing a PR resource in-house is a lack of connections with media and influencers, especially if they are coming from a radically different industry where previous relationships won’t help much. Another con is that the media always look upon vendors suspiciously, so having that branded email address can count against you no matter how neutral your pitch might be. One other drawback is that being a part of the internal team means that you are in sync with the company’s general disposition toward PR, for better or worse. Independent, outside agencies have more freedom to push the envelope and develop programs that might be outside the comfort zone of the organization, but are great opportunities.

Finally, an internal resource might develop myopia and only focus on the few trade pubs where they know they can get placements - there’s not much growth or learning going on with that approach. With a variety of clients being placed in a number of different publications, agencies benefit from applying the learnings from other clients to your work, and have a broader outlook on overall trends in the marketplace.

Hire a PR Agency.

The Agency Landscape

There are many different types of agencies offering very different types of services. First, traditional PR firms are retainer-based and offer services based on the organization’s overall brand awareness goals. Second, pay-to-play agencies cultivate relationships with writers at various outlets and offer to make an introduction, only collecting fees if the story is successfully placed. Third, smaller boutique firms may offer more flexibility in terms of eschewing rigid retainer-based models and working on straight hourly rates, which may differ month to month depending on the PR opportunities available and the client’s fluctuating needs. They typically tend to specialize and have expertise in particular industry segments or types of media outlets.

Benefits:

The benefits of outsourcing the public relations function to an agency include leveraging existing media relationships and PR best practices when neither the connections nor knowledge and skills exist within an organization. Agencies can offer certain economies of scale (for a price) that an internal person or team simply can’t. PR agencies typically have other skillsets that are crucial in today’s content marketing landscape, where great writing alone isn’t enough. Graphic design, interactive design, video, and web development are all fair game for integrated public relations campaigns, and organizations may choose a “one-stop-shop” approach instead of employing those resources internally or trying to coordinate multiple external resources. Finally, PR firms have a lot of practice and have learned through experience how to pitch media, where the greatest opportunities are, and are a great sounding board for ideas that are way too promotional and never have a chance with the media.

Drawbacks:

Some drawbacks of PR agencies include inflexible retainer arrangements, black box work (it’s not clear who is actually performing the work, your account manager or an intern), and an increased drain on internal resources to identify subject matter experts and coordinate approvals. Traditional PR agency retainers can be a challenge, especially to startups and smaller organizations, for whom an agency may comprise a large percentage of an overall marketing budget. Certainly, the agency will work hard to prove its relative worth, but may struggle to provide actual ROI justification for their costs. Organizations must be aware that outsourcing PR doesn’t mean that the internal marketing team won’t be involved to various degrees - there is no “set it and forget it” PR agency, all of which, big or small, require regular interactions with marketing.

Which is Right For You?

So, how do you choose the right option for your organization? Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

What type of market are you in, and how well developed is that market?

For example, if you are in a highly specialized B2B industry with few competitors and highly differentiated products, your PR efforts need to be built around educating the market on the problem you solve and subtly suggesting that you provide the best way to solve it. You should choose a PR resource that has a track record of getting placements in the publications that are most heavily relied on by your target buyers, while also demonstrating an ability to get top tier publications interested in a similarly unique value proposition.

In a well-developed market with key players battling for market share, your PR efforts may be more concentrated on opportunities to clearly highlight the differences between you and the competition, and also to be in publications where they are not - general education on the problem is not as key of a goal here. Carefully assess that the person or agency you hire understands your market and can provide evidence that they will be effective in reaching the audience you care about in the ways you need most.

What stage is your company in its overall lifecycle? A startup just kicking things off, or a well-entrenched company clearly possessing the market leadership position (or somewhere in between)?

It goes without saying that startups have a much different PR challenge than companies with serious brand recognition. It’s critical to choose a PR resource that understands the unique strategies and tactics necessary for the particular stage your company is in today - and can adapt as your company evolves. Startups need brand recognition among their target audience, as well as the ability to take the greatest possible advantage of “hard news” such as fundraising, celebrity investors, IPO, etc. If you’re a startup, does the PR resource you’re considering working with have any experience with startups? Are they prepared for the significant opportunities, as well as challenges, that are involved with working with smaller, more resource-strapped teams?

If you’re a mid to large size company that is well-established, your PR goals may be more in the neighborhood of reinforcing your leadership position, continuing to reach under-served market segments, and finding new and creative ways to tell your story to the buyers who already know and buy from you. It’s important to remind current customers why they continue to buy from you, and PR is an excellent way to do this at scale. Does your PR resource have experience with mid to large size companies in a similar industry? What sort of relevant past placements can they produce that speak to your current PR needs?

Does your company culture align more with centralized, internal control or outsourcing when possible?

Some companies prefer to do as much as possible internally and only rely on third parties when absolutely necessary. Since PR is such a critical component of overall brand awareness, companies with hands-on leadership may prefer to hire a PR resource internally for the greatest level of control over the exact activities that person pursues. As mentioned previously, it’s typically more cost-effective to bring PR in-house, and it’s easier to integrate PR into one’s overall marketing efforts when the person managing it is in lockstep with the rest of the organization.

Other companies realize that they don’t value the ability to tightly control all aspects of PR, and know that an external agency has skills and connections they don’t want or need to add to the internal marketing team. In that case, finding an external PR resource that fits with the culture of the company is still important, because they are an extension of the internal team marketing team and must be aligned on values and business objectives.

Choose Wisely

Regardless of which option you choose, relentlessly check references until you are satisfied that you have a complete enough picture of what that person or agency has done in the past, so you can reasonably try to predict what they will do for you in the future. Choosing a PR resources is one of the most important marketing decisions you can make - so make it wisely.

Is your organization searching for a PR resource? What criteria is most important to you as you search? Have other tips not mentioned above? Please share your thoughts in the comments.