I recently received my latest issue of The Strategist, a quarterly publication from the Public Relations Society of America. In it, I was pleased to see an article discussing the benefits of hiring an external PR agency over an internal PR staff. It’s a question we at Communiqué PR hear regularly: “Why should I hire you and not someone in-house?”

It’s an excellent question and certainly worth exploring. Some of the arguments presented in the article include:

1. Sustained focus: An external PR agency likely has a staff supporting your business. Depending on your budget, this could be a couple people to more than a handful. Should a crisis arise for your business, your agency PR team can divide and conquer. One person can handle reactive media inquiries pertaining to the current issue, while the other person (or people) can continue focusing on your proactive media relations – the positive stories that take time to come to fruition, but which ultimately help balance the potentially negative coverage, and resulting negative perceptions, that come with a crisis situation.

1. Breadth: An in-house PR practitioner knows your business inside and out. But they also often know only your industry beat reporters. A PR agency account member, on the other hand, has experience with reporters in a number of industries focused on various beats. What if your IT company suddenly wanted to target K-12 organizations or higher ed institutions? The agency rep probably already knows the education reporters and will have more success when pitching because the relationship is established. And because they’re talking to a multitude of reporters every day, they have insights that can’t be gleaned through Cision or other database searches. The agency rep knows which journalist wants to write a story about cybersecurity while their editor wants them to focus on the stock market. And they can help make that knowledge work for you.

1. Independence: Reporters often like multiple sources when writing a story. If you’re in-house, you don’t always have the connections to provide more sources to a reporter; however, a PR agency staffer has an arsenal of clients that could be provided as sources. The reporter saves time because they don’t have to seek out more contacts and the agency staffer strengthens the relationship with the reporter while helping your company get the story.

But those aren’t the only reasons. Consider the following as well:

1. Perspective: Agency staffers can approach product launches and other news with valuable perspective not often gained when in-house. The agency pros can ask tough questions about what makes something newsworthy and understand whether media will find it notable. Sometimes when working in-house, there’s a possibility that you become a die-hard fan of your company and believe everything about it is newsworthy. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. But the agency team can provide counsel on how to make something as newsworthy as possible, and/or offer guidance on the best way to communicate the news for the most ROI.

1. Creativity: While in-house PR practitioners can be creative, a PR agency has more brainpower to tap for the most creative ideas. From seasoned PR professionals to new college graduates, agency staffers can combine experience with out of the box ideas to get a solution that works for your business.

1. Multiple specialties: When you hire a team in-house, you limit your capabilities. You’ll rarely find a PR pro who is gifted at media relations, crisis management, social media and analyst relations. But with a PR agency, you can have a number of resources to rely upon, all of whom have particular specialties and passions that can benefit your business.

What are some additional pros and cons of hiring a PR agency? If you’re considering hiring a PR firm, give us a call. We’d be happy to talk through our capabilities and what we can do for your business.

Additional Communiqué PR blog posts you might find helpful:

• Thinking about Investing in PR? Five Questions to ask your Potential Agency
• Internal vs. External PR Roles
• Strategic Public Relations Excerpt: Picking your PR Team Wisely