Six Reasons to Hire a PR Consultant
Considering hiring public relations support for your business?
Congratulations! You are thinking strategically about the power of publicity, word-of-mouth and strategic communication for your business.
“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds
mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”
As you consider adding PR to your toolkit, there are things to keep in mind – cost, level of service and effectiveness to name a few – as you seek the right kind of outside support.
Here are six reasons you may want to hire a PR consultant.
1. PR consultants are experienced practioners in “earned” media. Not only do PR consultants know the media landscape, they also follow the trends, breaking news and timely opportunities to align your story, front and center, with the right journalists at the right time. Usually, a PR consultant already has established relationships with the journalists who are more likely to cover your story.
2. PR consultants can provide personalized service. Public relations is not a transactional endeavor. It’s exactly as it sounds – building and sustaining relationships with your publics. Hiring a PR consultant means you’ve gained an extension to your executive team who can concentrate on helping you build your reputation as you strategically engage with your key audiences in a way that matters most.
3. PR consultants are a cost-effective, worthwhile investment. Most PR firms charge a hefty monthly retainer fee, often in the thousands of dollars, with an extended time commitment and deposit required. As business leaders seriously consider strategic brand positioning, PR consultants can often work with more flexibility, and without the overhead and fees an agency must charge, including the costs of retaining full-time staff.
4. PR consultants have established relationships you can leverage in your marketing strategy. In addition to essential media relationships, they often have other resources at their fingertips – marketing consultants, graphic designers, writers, videographers, web developers, and other experts that can often work with the same kind of flexibility your PR consultant can provide, again at the fraction of the cost of a full-service agency.
5. PR consultants are unbiased third-party counselors. When seeking buy-in from other leadership, or even counseling co-leaders on how not to approach an issue, a third-party, outside counselor can share delicate news and be an advocate when unpopular decisions need to be made.
6. Bonus – PR consultants are a wealth of information and with a keen understanding of how PR plays into your overarching marketing strategy. You likely have a marketing strategy and a social media strategy in tandem with PR. Often, a PR consultant can support on all of these aspects of your promotional plan, as well as dovetail – strategically – the power of PR within this infrastructure.
There are plenty of reasons to engage a PR practitioner. As you establish your leadership and message across the continuum of your stakeholders, consider strategic PR as your secret sauce in engaging in strategic and meaningful relationship building.
To learn how Mixed Media PR can help you build your PR strategy, contact us.
