When you’re choosing between hiring a PR agency or using in-house public relations for your business, it is essential first to understand what public relations entails. Public relations is the process of attempting to influence and persuade members of a business’s public, including shareholders, existing and potential customers, to view your brand positively. This is done by showcasing the brand’s beliefs, strategies, activities, and accomplishments. PR efforts can be carried out in-house or outsourced to PR agencies.
What does modern PR entail?
External and internal communication
PR efforts include corporate communications, media relations, social media, content creation, writing speeches, and quotes, or holding events. In the past, PR generally predominantly involved having press agents generating publicity for a business. While it does still include generating publicity, the PR world has evolved to include developing strategies to influence how a company is perceived. Moreover, good PR is supposed to create multiple ways to form and reinforce positive perceptions.
Firstly, it can be used to communicate with employees, customers, shareholders, or the media about anything going on with the business. This includes crisis communications. When trying to diffuse a situation, public relations functions aid in developing trust and credibility among essential people in a company.
Brand awareness
Good PR assists in raising awareness about a company and allowing it to define, control, and distribute its message to both internal and external audiences. Practical public relations functions may also assist a business in advertising itself, communicating during a crisis, and defending its reputation from media attacks.
Crisis communication
While media representation is a part of crisis communication, the public relations department is responsible for creating a crisis communications plan and training leadership and staff on its components. In order to be effective, a crisis communications plan typically determines specific logistics for expected reporters and names an official crisis spokesperson, first and foremost. This communications plan should also develop targeted messages for internal and external audiences, and train company leadership to handle challenging or hostile questions.
Relationship building
Secondly, PR can use to develop positive, mutually beneficial relationships with media professionals. You can do this by answering any questions, establishing a positive perception, and countering misinformation. Ultimately, the goal is always to protect the business’s reputation.
Content marketing and social media outreach
Additionally, PR uses different strategies to reach out to existing and potential consumers who use social media regularly by producing materials that support positive public perceptions. With the rise of social media, the average PR specialist is now also responsible for the online representation of their clients. If a client has a blog, Facebook page, or Twitter account, the PR firm should have access to it. If they don’t, the firm should create one. In contrast to press releases, social media presence is easily accessible by the general public. As a result, the agency doesn’t have to worry about sticking to the news format or looking biased on behalf of the client. This is because no one expects a brand not to brag about themselves on their blog. Social media updates should be written as though the information is coming directly from the client.
Reputation management
Finally, PR is about making sure that comments from the company executive align with the company’s desired message. These executive messages can be shaped by writing speeches, quotes, and holding events.
Creation of corporate material
A good PR strategy also involves the preparation of printed and electronic publications. Company newsletters, blogs, speeches, and annual reports are all examples of content created by a public relations department. A letter to employees from the CEO, for example, could be written by another member of a company. A public relations department will frequently collaborate with another department to ensure content like this is consistent with the company’s overall messaging. For example, the public relations department might collaborate with advertising and marketing departments to create a description, report, or other pieces of material for a new product or service.
Once you understand what PR is designed to do for business, it is then time to study the positives and negatives of doing in-house PR and hiring a PR agency. Let us first look at the benefits of hiring a PR agency.
Benefits of hiring a PR agency
1) Access to more media relationships
First things first, PR is all about creating media relationships. Failure to develop positive relationships can make the difference between gaining media coverage and your story being overlooked. Thanks to the experience that PR agencies have, you can get more and better media contacts. Since they are more active in the industry than most brands, they are more likely to form relationships with media professionals. These relationships can later be used to create a media database. Mutually beneficial relationships can work wonders for your media outreach. After all, it’s true that media professionals may ignore an email sent from a company they have never heard of. However, they would most likely be more interested in opening an email if they see the name of a familiar PR agency attached to it.
2) Access to PR expertise
Depending on the nature of your company, going through the recruiting process and putting a team together to do marketing and public relations might be a struggle. Businesses generally hire PR firms because they prefer to outsource some of these processes and tasks. After all, they know that other people can do it better and more efficiently. PR agencies are better placed to inform businesses about the current media landscape, best practices, and PR trends. They take a much more comprehensive view of things than an in-house team. This is because they work with PR across multiple industries and markets. As a result, it is a good idea to hire a PR agency run by experienced pros.
3) Access to a fresh perspective
If you run an established company, you may think that you know everything about your industry, customers, and market. Unfortunately, if you’ve been focused on product development and client acquisition throughout the life of your brand then PR may not be your strong suit. Similarly, startups and companies that are starting a new brand may not have a complete idea of their media outreach. Without experience, you may make mistakes and waste time while going through trial and error. For this reason, you can turn to PR agencies that provide fresh external perspectives. These unique perspectives can bring new ideas that both established companies and startups may not have thought of. PR agencies are more likely to propose bold changes than in-house PR teams. After all, you hire a PR agency to boost your brand image and try something new.
Ultimately, when PR agencies work, they truly deliver results. Senior business development and marketing teams who recognize this engage skilled PR firms, are focused, and have a clear and proven commercial and creative drive, ensuring that the campaigns they produce deliver consistently. Indeed, there’s a lot to be said for the degree of outcomes that businesses can achieve. Hiring a PR firm to execute a powerful and engaging PR brief can help you maximize these outcomes.
How Pressfarm can help with all of this
For those looking to gain media coverage and gain a fresh perspective, Pressfarm is a great way to go. Pressfarm works with startups and companies to create newsworthy content. This content ranges from email pitches and press releases to guest posts and press kits and is either distributed to media professionals or on branded channels. Pressfarm’s media database of over 1 million media contacts is also perfect for companies that need help finding their ideal media match. Finally, the team at Pressfarm will also help with online media distribution that helps your brand feature in relevant search results on multiple search engines.
Let us now look at how hiring an in-house PR team can benefit you if hiring an agency isn’t the right fit for your business.
Benefits of hiring an in-house PR team
1) This team has knowledge of the business and industry
A significant benefit to using an in-house PR team is that they have more knowledge about your company, brand, customers, and audience than any external PR agency. After all, you may need to educate a PR agency about your brand and monitor their work to ensure that it aligns with your brand message. However, an in-house team cannot make any mistakes when talking about their own company. This is an important advantage, especially if your company involves in a highly technical field or a particular niche with jargon and complex concepts.
2) This team works closely with the rest of the company
If a PR project is quite large, then it can involve lots of meetings, revisions, discussions, and feedback. By hiring an in-house PR team, communication through the entire process is a lot easier. Ultimately, completing the whole project is faster and easier. Working with an external agency means that there are different levels of management, writers, and people. This means that speed, efficiency, and agility may be lower.
3) This team will always make your brand the top priority
Since PR agencies are working with multiple industries, their team usually has to spread time and attention across many clients. For this reason, it is possible to feel like you are not getting the priority you deserve. When you work with an in-house PR department of your own, it is easier to get updates on how things are going and get answers to questions.
4) This team can save you money
PR agencies can be pretty expensive, depending on what services and tools they provide. The average cost can be about $3,000-5,000 a month, although some may deliver cheaper packages. If your company’s budget is small, an in-house PR team may be the best solution because they may perform the same services as an external PR agency.
Adequate in-house public relations staff are a true force to reckon with. At their best, they’re commercially focused, ruthless, and analytical in their campaign planning. They have a clear and unwavering understanding of the company’s commercial strategy and all the key people who make it work. They understand the company’s inner workings like no other department. Furthermore, they have unparalleled access to everyone from the shop floor staff to the CEO. They also have an intuitive awareness of the products and services on offer – and how to best put them in the market. The most effective in-house PR teams run the show like a fast-paced newsroom. They generate rolling KPIs and campaign metrics and an unrivaled awareness of the media with which your company should be interacting.
Choosing between an in-house PR team and an external PR agency can be stressful. However, with this list, you can make the best decision for your brand. If you’re still stuck between the two, you can always hire a small team and outsource complex PR functions that your team can’t handle on their own to an agency.