Pros and Cons of PR Consultancy

Pros of PR consultancy:

1)      Consultancy firms are like advertising agencies who can be done away with if found inefficient.

2)      Consultants can provide unbiased and impartial services facilitating correct assessment of the situation by the management.

3)      PR consultants will have location advantage enabling companies situated at the distant places for maintaining the lie of contact with the government , media and other agencies

4)      The consultants are better equipped to collect a host of information from varied sources which will be of value of the management .they can even reach across the world for global communication matters .

5)      Normally PR consultant’s posses wider range of experience and exposure by working with much organization.

Cons of PR Consultancy:

1)      Most of the consultants employ inexperienced personnel with lower salaries resulting in half-hearted performance by them.

2)      Divided loyalties and partial services of the consultants create barriers of communication for an organization.

3)      Lack of continuous functioning is a major hindrance to effective building up of reputation for the consultants.

4)      Consultants will be needed to make frequent references to management for approval while dealing with dealing with the press and the government.

5)      The consultants may lack sufficient knowledge about the organization for which he is working and make errors.

In the case where there is no internal public relations department within a company, outside counsel is usually retained by corporate management to do one of the following two things:

• Advise the company on PR issues and act as the service function in the implementation of the PR programme.
• Assist the company in establishing an internal PR department, including formulation of policy and recruitment of personnel.

Hence, the outside agency serves as a ready source of talent to be called on for task as and when needed by the company. When selecting an outside agency it is important to specify the criteria by which the choice will be made. One of the criteria is to look at more than just one agency when you are out in the market to hire a consultancy firm. You must look at about three, and get them all to present their credentials and work. If possible you may even ask them on a specific project and then assess their capabilities according to what they produce. For this you may pay them all a fee to avoid getting into problems related to speculative pitching. Another criterion is pre-selecting the agency based on its reputation and track record on work which is similar to your requirements.