9 reasons why business owners don’t hire PR agencies

These common beliefs lead organizations to forego hiring PR pros, along with arguments for why they (or you) might want to reconsider.

Ragan Insider Premium Content
Ragan Insider Content

It’s a question that many organizations’ chiefs and business owners ask when looking at PR and branding goals.

Here are nine reasons people give that justify not enlisting PR agencies for communications efforts, along with counterarguments to consider:

1. PR agencies are expensive .

A PR firm costs $10,000 to $30,000 a month or more. If you need lots of PR, you may spend as much time watching the meter run as overseeing your program.

However, you can limit your losses by hiring a fixed-fee firm. Work with an agency on monthly deliverables at a preset price and get predictable invoices. This arrangement shifts managing project hours from you to the agency. If the agency takes 20 hours to draft a press release, it’s on them.

2. PR agencies won’t know my industry, or my company.

If you want someone unimpeachably loyal who you train, hire someone. Even though your hire loves your industry, company and story, he or she may miss macro and local trends—and even PR trends.

To read the full story, log in.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today

Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.