I’d like to talk about the elephant in the room. Specifically, the boardroom.
“Do we really need the PR agency? We’ll get AI to write the press releases and Sarah in marketing can send it out. In fact, with AI, I’m sure we can manage all our PR in-house. Right?”
I worked client side for nearly 15 years before moving to agency life. And I know that when there’s a downturn, as budgets tighten and every expense gets scrutinised, external agencies find themselves in the firing line.
But taking PR in-house isn’t the quick fix many think it is. In fact, from my experience on both sides of the fence, it can create more problems than it solves.
Unfortunately, bringing PR in-house is very rarely about building your own PR department or capabilities. Usually it’s asking your existing marketing person or small team to ‘just’ add PR to their mix – and workloads. (I can hear all the marketing managers that have been there laughing hysterically.)
Spoiler alert – bringing PR ‘in-house’ rarely ends well…
The reality of ‘going in-house’
I’ll be honest, there are some genuine advantages to having PR capabilities in-house.
You have complete control. You know your business inside out, and your team lives and breathes your company culture, understands every product nuance, and doesn’t need a briefing document to know what you do.
There is no waiting for the agency to get back to you. Need a quick quote for a journalist? Your in-house person can turn it around immediately.
It feels cheaper. Even if you decide to employ a dedicated PR person, the salary can be smaller than an agency – especially those with traditional retainer models – on paper. But what most businesses don’t spot are the hidden costs of doing your own PR.
PR challenges are genuinely very challenging
The ability to scale. It’s harder than you think.
Scaling people isn’t like scaling technology. You can’t just click ‘upgrade’ and suddenly have more PR capacity. When your business grows, your PR needs grow – more markets, more products, more stakeholders, more complexity. What starts as “Sarah can handle our PR” quickly becomes “Sarah’s drowning and we need help, but we don’t have time to hire, let alone train, and manage multiple people for specialist roles.”
I’ve experienced a client that tried to scale PR in-house as the business expanded into new markets. They thought it would save money, but it actually cost them six months of missed opportunities while they found, recruited and trained the right people.
Meanwhile, one of my Resonates’ clients got their first piece of coverage only 5 days after working with us. Because our people are specialists who can hit the ground running from day one.
The training tax. Onboarding in-house people is expensive.
We believe that training and growing people is a fundamental part of a great business culture. Maybe you do too. But is the cost of months of time and onboarding new PR people listed on your budget spreadsheet? Unlikely.
Yet when you hire in-house, you’re paying to train them in:
- Your specific industry or niche
- A constantly moving media landscape
- Complex contact management and relationship building
- Emergency and crisis management
- Content strategy, writing and delivery
- PR project planning, measurement and analytics
All great skills, but it’s a lot, and people take time to become proficient. And your PR progresses at a heavily restricted capacity until they do.
On the flip side, PR agency teams come pre-loaded with years of experience and expertise. From journalism to copywriting, research to pitching, we’ve already trained on the skills, have learned the lessons, and have ongoing media relationships. You can access the skills your business needs in days, not months.
The technology stack. Today, PR is so much more than a press release.
If you’re scaling your business, you need to scale your tech stack too. Gone are the days of relying on press releases. Today’s PR needs:
- Media monitoring and analysis solutions
- Digital asset management platforms
- CRM systems for media relationships
- Analytics and reporting platforms
- Content management systems.
You’ll need to increase the limit on your corporate credit card to cope with the monthly app and tool fees, or start praying to your local IT and procurement gods. Either way, you’re facing a significant investment in licensing, training and usage costs.
The relationship reality. Media relationships are longer term than your people.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth. Media relationships are personal, and they move with people.
When your in-house PR person leaves, which statistically they will (I was shocked to see the average tenure for in-house PR roles has dropped to just 1.5 years), they take their contacts and relationships with them.
PR agencies provide the opposite. We create continuity. We have more relationships, with more contacts. The relationships sit with the agency, not with individuals – and when someone’s on holiday, we keep your comms flowing because you’ve got access to a whole team of people with the right skills.
The question isn’t whether you can afford a specialist PR agency. It’s whether you can afford not to have one.
All of this is why PR agencies continue to exist, even in difficult economic times. Yes, agencies cost money. But so does doing PR badly. And getting it wrong in a competitive market like cleantech can be costly.
Cleantech is becoming increasingly complex – new regulations, evolving technology, shifting investor priorities. You need people who live in this space. And with everyone shouting about sustainability and net zero, cutting through the noise requires expertise.
We’re strategic partners and extensions of your team. We have the sector knowledge. We don’t just understand PR, we understand your world (as like me, most of the team have walked in your shoes and lived in your energy world). We’ve spent years building relationships with the key trade publications and who writes for them. We’re on top of industry trends and how to position you within them. We understand the regulatory landscape and how it affects messaging. We know the key events, conferences, and networking opportunities. And we see all your competitors’ strategies (because we’re watching them too).
PR is not a quick fix. It’s not something you can switch on and off like a Google Ads campaign. Building brand reputation, establishing thought leadership, and creating meaningful media relationships takes time. It’s measured in years, not quarters – and only then if you have the right skills and processes.
When businesses take PR in-house during budget cuts, they’re often looking for short-term savings that damage long-term value. It’s like stopping a marathon at mile 20, just when all that training is about to pay off.
If you are looking to outsource to a specialist agency, or considering an in-house move and want to talk about anything I’ve touched on, drop me an email [email protected]
I’d love to chat.
“After over 10 years working with the Resonates team, they’re not just our PR agency – they’re strategic partners who understand our business as well as we do. They’ve helped us navigate multiple market shifts, product launches, and even a couple of crises. That kind of institutional knowledge and trust isn’t something you can replicate overnight. The value isn’t just in the media coverage – it’s in having a team that anticipates our needs, understands our market and delivers consistent results year after year. That’s partnership, not just service provision.”
Ros Bayliss, Global Marketing Director at Codelocks International.
