If you’re a small-to-medium sized company looking to widen your audience you may be undecided as to whether to hire a PR agency or an experienced freelance consultant. There are pros and cons to both, but as a freelancer who has spent eight years within agencies I can tell you why I believe the PR freelancer model is probably the right one for you.

• PR agency day rates (eight hours) can cost anywhere between £800 and £1,000. Freelancers’ rates could save you 40-50 per cent on that fee, meaning you get roughly twice as much time for your money as we don’t have the overheads of offices and commutes
• If you’re a small fee payer to a PR agency you may well find yourself steamrollered when a bigger, ‘more valuable’ client has a crisis or major product launch. A freelancer stands or falls by their reputation, so every client is highly valued and you won’t find yourself ignored
• Good PR freelancers will have years of experience and contacts in their field and will be able to prove their credentials. Many PR firms engage in a tactic called ‘pitch and switch’, where a senior team will come in to pitch their agency to you, but once you’ve signed you find they’ve palmed your account off to a newly-graduated ‘executive’. Would you trust your brand to someone with no business or industry experience?
• Many freelancers will have left agency life due to creative constraints – their agency or client may have wanted them to ‘play it safe’ rather than counselling what they thought would really create an impact for the client
• An agency will tell you that they’ve got more heads and therefore can do a better job than a freelancer. As Cole Porter wrote; “It ain’t necessarily so”. Make sure your PR freelancer has a mix of traditional PR and digital media experience, and that they can write good copy. Where they may have a skills gap they will more often than not know someone that can help out in that area for a similar fee, again, making sure you get the best value for money

If you’d like to learn more about selecting a PR agency or freelancer, have a listen to this podcast (below) I created with my colleague Emily McDaid from boutique tech PR agency, Hatch PR. Follow this link for more podcasts on PR and digital marketing best practice.