Promotion in the Media: When to Go to a PR Agency

The effective interaction with the media is the goal of a wide variety of companies, from different spheres of activity and of all sizes - from small restaurants to the largest diversified holding companies. Each customer has certain tasks, but some companies seek their solutions in PR agencies, and others try to solve them on their own. Based on our experience, Spice Media experts compiled a list of cases where the promotion in the media with the help of professional PR agencies is most efficient.

1) For a young company that just entered the market, cooperation with an agency is a very good chance to make themselves known to all target journalists at once. The effect of such strategy is to save up to one year of doing the public awareness work from scratch. Joint start will be most productive. In addition, a PR agency knows the style, the size and other characteristics of each media, has stable relationships with journalists, accumulates a constant stream of requests from journalists.

2) The company opens a new area of activity. If the company starts a new direction, the previous media list of friendly journalists' contacts can become irrelevant. How can an agency be helpful in this case? See paragraph 1.

3) Occasional cooperation, for example, promotion of a certain event. Let's suppose that during the whole year, a special employee takes care of the daily PR tasks, but a couple of times per year the company organizes press conferences, product launches or other events that are strategically important to publicize in the media. In such a situation, expanding the press service staff will be costly and impractical.

4) Going out to a new region. In this case, a local communications agency will make a reliable partner. Experts who are familiar with journalists of regional media and their peculiarities, will help build a well-thought promotion and not to commit blunders.

5) A company that's been on the market for several years and, by virtue of various reasons, needs to identify its presence in the information field. The head of the company is not an expert in PR and has difficulties choosing a staff specialist, since it is difficult to assess the level of their professionalism and to evaluate the effectiveness. In this case, it’s reasonable to seek for a PR agency’s assistance, which will develop a communication strategy, define the communication channels, key messages, establish cooperation with relevant media. As a result the company attracts  a full-time specialist.

6) Large companies that implement a huge number of projects/products/services. Despite the presence and operation of their own PR service, such companies also seek consultancy from PR agencies, as their own employees are unable to cope with all the workload.

7) Anti-Crisis PR. The employees who are in charge of the ongoing work to promote the company in the information field, often have no experience in crisis management. In addition, in some cases, staff resources are not sufficient due to a dramatic increase of the information load and the need to promptly reflect the information attacks.

Also the advantages of working with PR agencies include:

• Interchangeability of the professionals. A PR specialist goes on vacation, on maternity leave, on sick leave, which leads to downtime, and sometimes to missed PR opportunities. The agency replaces the company's manager with another one, which allows to avoid any interruption in operation.
• KPIs. When working with an agency, all KPIs are fixed in the contract. The agency understands that failure to comply with these parameters could lead to fines at least and to reputational risks and termination of the contract at most. With regard to employees, such things are rarely practised.
• Financial burden. If the average salary of a PR specialist with experience today is at the level of RUR 50,000-60,000, plus tax and social security payments as well as the maintenance workplace costs, and as a result, this amount is increased by 1. 5 - 2 times. This amount would allow one to hire a PR agency, with which it is easier to cancel the contract than to fire a staff member if they are incompetent.