How to Find and Hire a Reliable PR Agency: 7 Tips to Consider

The importance of PR is well-known. It’s the best way to get noticed, gain media attention, and spread awareness about your brand. And a PR team eases the burden of managing your own public relations efforts.

When choosing a PR agency, though, you want to find one that’ll help you build relationships with the public and media outlets while also promoting your brand. Before committing to any particular agency, you need a good understanding of what they can do for you and how much value their services will provide.

In this article, we’ve prepared our seven key tips to consider when you hire a PR agency.

What is a PR agency, and what does it do?

A PR agency, also known as a public relations firm, is a company that specializes in creating and executing strategic communications campaigns to create a positive image and promote your brand or business.

These firms are experts at crafting press releases, media pitches, and other materials to help reach the right audience. They can also work with influencers to increase reach and get your message out to the right people.

PR services typically include:

• Crafting press releases and other public relations materials
• Developing effective media pitches
• Organizing and executing events for journalists, partners, and customers
• Leveraging influencers to spread your brand's message
• Monitoring the media for opportunities to promote your brand
• Conducting PR outreach on your behalf
• Creating reports and tracking metrics for performance measurement

In short, a PR agency helps you get your brand seen, heard, and talked about.

What to Consider Before Hiring a PR Firm

Before you hire someone (or a team of someones) to handle your PR, you need to make sure it's the right decision for your brand or public image. Public relations is not a magic bullet that'll instantly increase exposure and recognition — PR effectiveness hinges on both the team you hire, but also on your company's overall goals, strategies, and existing systems.

Set clear objectives.

Your first step in hiring a PR agency is setting your own objectives. You might not have an idea of what your goals are for public relations, and that's ok. But you should still have a sense of what you want the PR firm to do, how much you're willing to spend, and what results you expect.

Here are a few common goals and objectives that individuals and companies that hire a PR agency typically have:

Improve your brand reputation

Whether your image has fallen victim to dark PR or you're simply doing a little rebranding, a PR firm can help you do it. If you want to improve your brand reputation or get yourself out of a PR crisis, there are a few prerequisites that it should meet:

• Your vision is clear.
• Your mission statement is strong and consistent.
• Your brand represents the values it claims to stand for.
• Those values must be generally seen as positive.

One of our favorite examples of this is Pepsi's 2024 rebranding initiative in Australia. They collaborated with emerging fashion designer Jackson Cowden to create the Pepsi Pulse Collection, a line of ten digital fashion designs. The launch event took place on Sydney's harbor edge and featured performances by Australian singer G Flip and modeling by Samantha Harris.

Pepsi's one of the best at tapping into local culture (this campaign eventually went global in cities like London, Dubai, Cairo, and Mexico City). This is the perfect example of that.

Even if your primary goal isn't to improve your public image, you should use these prerequisites as a checklist to ensure your brand is in good standing with its current public image.

Increase your social engagement 

Social engagement is important for three reasons:

• It gets people talking about your brand.
• It's another outlet to consistently produce shareable content.
• It helps you control your narrative and build impactful relationships with new and existing customers.

A PR firm can help you achieve all three through targeted Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and/or LinkedIn campaigns.

In early 2025, CeraVe launched a campaign featuring actor Michael Cera, who humorously claimed to be the founder of the skincare brand. The narrative unfolded through a series of cryptic appearances in influencer videos and social media posts, sparking curiosity and widespread speculation online.

After letting the masses talk among themselves (netting CeraVe more than 9 billion impressions), he finally admitted the truth in a Super Bowl ad.

This is the kind of comprehensive, outside-the-box planning that you'll only get with an agency that can treat “going viral” like a science.

Drive visitors to an event 

If you have an upcoming event (e.g., webinar, fundraiser, product launch, etc.), you can use PR to drive more people to it.

A few of the ways that PR can help you promote an upcoming event include:

• Creating bylines, press releases, and articles in targeted publications
• Developing influencer campaigns and using social media to spread the word
• Developing engaging content like videos, interviews, podcasts, or blog posts
• Reaching out to the media with pitches and stories
• Using press release distribution services, digital campaigns, and other online marketing tactics

Ultimately, the key to successful event promotion is finding a PR firm that understands your goals and knows how to reach the right people. They should also have the right connections so that they can get your message out there.

Launch a product for a specific audience 

Product launches need a lot of hype. They're often used to create buzz and get people talking about a product or service.

If you aren't sure exactly how to target the customers you want with your new product, a PR company can support you with research, insights, data analysis, and - ultimately - campaigning.

If you're hiring a PR services provider for a product launch, there are a few things your company will need beforehand:

• A battle-tested product with a defined market
• At least the beginnings of a marketing strategy
• A budget for the campaign

An understanding of who the product is for and what it solves for them

In the SaaS industry, this is super common. Adobe frequently unveils new features during its annual Adobe MAX conference, creating buzz through live demonstrations and interactive sessions.

And when startups are raising capital, they run to an outlet like TechCrunch to get featured there.

Insight from our PR experts: This type of content doesn't work for all audiences and business types. If you're an ecom brand, you'll want to do something more visual heavy, like a social media campaign.

Support website SEO

In many ways, SEO and digital PR go hand-in-hand. SEO is all about driving organic traffic to your online presence, and PR is about getting your message out to the right audience.

Many PR activities (e.g., bylines, news article placements, podcasts, guest interviews, etc.) will include a link to your website, a key driver of SEO. This not only helps to increase brand visibility, but it can also help improve your website's search engine rankings.

Social media, video features, and other forms of PR don't directly provide SEO value, but they will increase the number of times people search for your company, which can help improve your ranking.

Drive more sales

If you want to sell more, good publicity is the way to do it. 82% of shoppers prefer to shop with brands they share values with, and unless you communicate those values effectively, nobody will know what they are or where to find you.

• Environmental sustainability
• Social responsibility
• Diversity and inclusion
• Ethical sourcing

A PR firm can help you craft a message that shows your target audience you embody these things and give it the reach it needs to get in front of the right people. This, in turn, will help increase leads and sales.

Define your budget.

Once you have your goals aligned, you can start to think about your budget.

The reason we put this step second instead of first is that you need to go into the budgeting process with an open mind. You probably don't know exactly what goes into PR costs, so it's better to determine your business objectives and what the ROI on those might be before setting your budget in stone.

Several elements impact the total cost of a PR campaign:

• The level of exposure you're looking for: If you want to get your brand in front of as many eyes as possible, you'll have to pay for those impressions. Influencers with larger followings, publications with higher readership numbers, and higher-profile events will cost more. When budgeting, it's important to find a happy medium between the amount of exposure you want and how much you're willing to pay for it.
• Timeframe: If you want to see quicker results, you'll need a larger upfront investment in the campaign. A PR agency may recommend a longer timeline or different tactics if they know they won't be able to achieve your goals within a certain timeframe.
• Location: If you want your message to reach an international audience, you'll need to work with an agency that understands PR trends around the world. This could include setting up additional language versions of your website, hiring local PR firms in each country, and other tactics.
• The types of press releases you need: Different tactics require different skill sets, and your agency will need the right combination of creatives, strategists, and media relations experts if you want a well-rounded campaign. In-depth content (e.g., video ads) can cost thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars if you want to do something elaborate.

Before deciding how much you want to spend on public relations exposure, evaluate how much you can actually handle as well.

Getting your product launch in front of millions of people won't make a difference if you're running a small company and can only sell 10,000 units. So make sure you don't outspend your capabilities in pursuit of PR results.

Determine the industry specialization.

Some PR agencies specialize in certain industries or niches. It's important that you find an agency that specializes in your particular industry, as they will have a better understanding of the trends, challenges, and best practices within your sector.

This is especially true if you're dealing with highly regulated industries like healthcare or finance. Specialized agencies will understand compliance regulations and know how to navigate them effectively.

Finding an agency with experience in your industry will also ensure that you're staying on top of the latest trends (e.g., content marketing, influencer outreach) and using the right tactics for maximum effectiveness.

A tip from our PR experts: Not all individuals and companies need to hire a niche-specialized PR agency. They command higher rates for their specialized knowledge and targeted network. A full-service PR firm with a broad range of experiences and expertise can usually provide the same quality of service but at a lower cost.

Ask for real case studies.

Case studies give you an in-depth look at what happened, why it happened, and how successful it was. They prove the PR agency's potential when dealing with individual client needs. When evaluating one, ask them for examples relevant to your industry or project type.

This'll give you an idea of what kind of results they've achieved and how their efforts have impacted past clients' businesses. It's also an excellent way to get a feel for how the agency works and whether their workflows are a good fit for your needs.

When evaluating case studies, here are a few red flags to look out for:

• Results that don't match the goals outlined in the project.
• Tactics that are outdated or no longer effective.
• Reports lacking comprehensive data and metrics to back up their claims.
• Outlandish results (e.g., higher than seemingly possible or done in a suspiciously short timeframe).

Almost every PR agency you look at will have case studies on its website. If they don't, you can ask for them in your initial outreach or when you get on a discovery call to talk with them (more on that later).

Check online reviews.

Online reviews are user-generated comments about a product or service that have been posted on the internet. They can be helpful for consumers when they're researching products or services, as they offer insights into what others liked and didn't like about a business. They can also be used to gauge a company's skills and abilities.

Sites like G2 and Clutch provide helpful reviews and ratings of PR agencies, as well as insights into their services.

Again, make sure that the reviews are from customers in your industry or with a similar project type to ensure you get accurate feedback.

You might also want to check out professional organizations like the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) to see if the agency is a member, as well as any awards they have won. This isn't a direct indicator of their quality, but it can provide more confidence in their abilities.

Prepare meaningful questions.

During your discovery call, the prospective agency partner will ask you questions regarding:

• General business info
• Your business goals
• Your current marketing efforts
• Why you want to hire a PR firm
• Your target audience
• Your budget

These questions are meant to help the agency gain an understanding of your business and develop a tailored strategy that meets your goals. They also help the company decide if you are a good fit for their services or not.

It's also important to be prepared with meaningful questions of your own. This will help you determine if the PR firm is right for you and can provide the services you need. 

We’ve built a table of questions you should focus on:

These will help you get a better feel for how an agency works and if their approach is in line with your requirements. They can also provide additional insights into the agency's skills, expertise, and resources.

Look for the right PR agency size (and type).

You'll probably know right away if a PR agency is too small or too big for your project.

• If the agency is too small, it won't have the resources to provide the type of comprehensive campaigns you need.
• If they're too big, they'll be overqualified and unable to commit as much attention or effort to your projects or meet your budget constraints.

Some agencies are also better suited to certain types of brands, like retail/ecom or SaaS.

To get a good idea of whether it's a good fit, check out their example campaigns. Do they flex multinational names like Airbnb and Uber, or are they companies you've never heard of? Do you mostly see consumer products brands, or do you see SaaS logos?