Communication departments play a crucial role in a company’s business strategy. In fact, nowadays these teams are essential for building brand reputation. Without effective communication, it’s difficult for an audience to recognize a brand and associate it with key values. In today’s highly competitive and information-saturated world, standing out without a strong communication strategy is nearly impossible.
However, many companies do not have a dedicated communication department or one that meets their needs. Additionally, internal communication teams often experience high workloads at certain times of the year, making it challenging to manage peak demands with their existing staff. When this happens, marketing and communication leaders must decide whether to expand the team.
While hiring new employees might be the first option, outsourcing communication efforts by hiring a PR agency can be a much more cost-effective solution for many businesses.
What Does a PR and Communication Agency Do
Strategic consulting
This service includes brand perception analysis, competitive research, and the creation of a cohesive brand narrative. Once a strategy is established, the agency’s communication team will develop a detailed action plan aligned with the company’s objectives.
Media relations and press coverage
One of the main functions of a PR agency is planning and executing strategies to maximize media exposure through press releases, interviews, and other PR tactics. These efforts help establish long-term trust with the media and increase brand visibility.
Content Creation
Agencies employ professional writers specialized in journalistic-style content, ensuring successful media placement. They can also develop and manage content strategies for blogs, websites, and social media platforms, ensuring that brand messaging remains consistent across all channels.
Event organization
Sometimes, the best way to connect with an audience is through in-person events that foster direct relationships and trust. PR agencies specialize in designing and executing events for product launches, financial results presentations, or other corporate announcements.
Creative Campaings
PR agencies excel at thinking ‘outside the box’, developing innovative, high-impact campaigns that capture attention in unique and memorable ways.
Clipping de prensa y gestión de crisis
Most agencies use external monitoring tools to track media mentions across print, online, and social media platforms. This allows them to compile daily press clippings, detect potential crises, and activate crisis management protocols when necessary.
What working models do communication agencies offer?
PR agencies typically operate under two models:
Project-Based work
This modality is useful for companies that have people in their internal team dedicated to communication and marketing, but need occasional support for their branding strategies. For example, this service can be provided to launch a specific communication campaign such as the promotion of a new product line launched for Christmas, or to achieve a large increase in brand awareness in the short term.
Long-Term Contract
In this case, the agency provides ongoing PR and communication support, offering expert consulting and execution on a daily basis. This model is especially beneficial for businesses that want to build long-term relationships with key stakeholders and maintain a strong corporate communication strategy.
Advantages of hiring a PR agency
The main benefits of outsourcing PR and working with a team of experts include:
A fast and skilled extensión of your team.
During peak workloads, the fastest way to gain access to expert communication professionals is by hiring an agency. Most agencies have extensive experience working with brands across various industries, and their teams quickly immerse themselves in a company’s identity and corporate information to implement a plan in no time. For example, at our agency, we strive to become a true extension of the marketing teams we collaborate with. To achieve this, we thoroughly study each brand’s products, services, values, and philosophy, allowing us to become genuine brand advocates. To communicate effectively, it is essential to fully understand the product or service and genuinely believe in its benefits.
Greater agility
Companies often go through long chains of supervision and approval when creating communication campaigns. This frequently slows down actions and reduces their effectiveness. By hiring a communication agency, the execution process is centralized within the agency, making workflows more agile.
Proven creative solutions
Agencies typically work with multiple industries and clients, allowing them to develop a broader perspective and creative solutions based on market best practices. Experience is crucial in communication, making the choice of an agency a surefire path to success.
Multidisciplinary teams
In general, an agency includes a variety of expert profiles. On one hand, there are professionals with backgrounds in journalism and marketing who create high-quality content. Additionally, agencies typically have graphic designers who provide visual support for all campaigns. Many agencies also have teams specializing in social media, influencer marketing, event management, creative campaigns, and crisis management. This is a great advantage for companies with a limited marketing department, as they can rely on their agency for multiple services through a single provider (and usually just one direct contact, making communication more efficient).
Strong relationships
Agencies have pre-established connections with journalists, influencers, and key industry players, making it easier to secure media coverage and partnerships.
In-House PR Team vs. PR Agency: A comparison
| Aspect | PR in-house | PR Agency |
| Expertise | Know all the details of the company. | Extensive experience in multiple industries and sectors. More fresh, multi-client experience. |
| Brand familiarity | They know all the details of the company. | More superficial. Less knowledge of a company’s internal affairs, employees, measures… |
| Creative capacity | May be limited by internal resources. | More diverse thanks to a multidisciplinary team. |
| Flexibility | Focused only on the business; less adaptability to rapid change. | Greater adaptability and scalable resources. |
| Costs | High investment in fixed costs. | It may be more costly in the short term, but more flexible in the long term. |
You need a communications and public relations agency
Consider hiring a PR agency if:
- You need to execute powerful campaigns at a specific moment in time to generate a high brand impact.
- You want to build trusting relationships with journalists and other stakeholders, but you don’t hace time to carry out all those activities you have in mind.
- You are looking for an outside perspective and fresh ideas based on new trends and success stories (what actually works).
- You do not have sufficinet internal resources, or you are looking for a flexibility to hire a larger or a smaller team of experts, depending on the evolution of your company.
Build an in-house PR team if:
- You prefer a team that is fully aligned with your culture and strategy and with your team.
- You have a very limited budget to hire external agencies.
- You want to have more control over the execution of strategies and you have clear and defined actions you want to take.
Our recommendation is to opt for a hybrid model, where the in-house team manages a strategy aligned with the brand’s values while relying on the consultancy of an external team. This external team can execute PR actions more quickly, with expertise, and ensure their effectiveness.
If your company needs specialized campaigns or is launching a new product or brand, at LF Channel, we would be delighted to hear from you. Write to us, and we will help you find the best solution.
