If you hire a Digital PR consultant, you may expect them to take work off your hands. But if you still spend your week coordinating the writer, designer and outreach team, you could have bought advice when what you needed was someone to manage delivery.
Both can be useful, depending on the team you already have. My role is to work out the direction and manage the specialists needed to deliver it, so you don’t have to become the campaign manager yourself.
Someone needs to decide whether the campaign still makes sense
Let’s say you approve a research idea because you expect it to reveal a national trend. When the analysis comes back, it only shows a modest difference in one region. Your writer is ready to start, the designer has booked time and the planned launch is approaching.
In that hypothetical situation, everyone could complete their assigned work and still produce a story the research doesn’t support. So the decision needs to happen before more of your budget goes into writing and design.
I would look at whether the regional finding is useful enough to become the story. If it is, we can narrow the idea to match what the research actually shows. If it isn’t, I would explain that rather than spend more money making an unsupported headline look convincing.
You may end up with a smaller campaign than you expected, but you should understand why the direction changed and what that means for the work you’re paying for.
You should know why extra work is being recommended
Now, let’s say that smaller story needs another piece of analysis. You would need to decide whether the extra cost is justified, and simply forwarding you a supplier’s estimate would leave you to work that out alone.
I should be able to explain what the analysis would help us understand, why the campaign needs it and what we could do without it. You keep control of additional spending, while I give you a recommendation you can assess.
The same applies when there is pressure to move quickly. If a journalist asks for a technical comment, a short deadline doesn’t mean I can approve an unchecked claim on your behalf. We still need someone qualified to confirm it, even if that means we cannot take the opportunity.
You still contribute, but you shouldn’t have to chase everyone
A consultant cannot replace the knowledge inside your business. I may need you or someone on your team to explain a technical point, confirm what can be shared or approve work beyond the original agreement.
But that doesn’t mean you should have to follow up with every supplier and settle every disagreement. If I’m managing delivery, those conversations should come together before I bring you the decision, so you can consider the recommendation without piecing together several separate updates.
If you already have a capable internal team, you may only need advice on the campaign direction. If you have reached the point where you don’t want to manage every task personally, the delivery management is likely to be a bigger part of what you need.
I would make that distinction clear before starting, because it changes both the service you’re buying and the amount of time you will need to contribute.
What happens if the campaign doesn’t get the result you wanted?
I can take responsibility for the recommendation, the quality of the work and how the team responds. But I cannot make an editor publish a story or guarantee that someone who reads it becomes your customer.
If a campaign disappoints, you should still receive an explanation of what happened. Saying that PR is unpredictable doesn’t help you decide whether there is a reason to change the approach, continue with it or stop spending.
That is part of what I mean by Digital PR consulting and managed delivery. You’re paying for judgement as well as coordination, so the advice needs to remain useful when the result is less positive than we hoped.
When we discuss working together, I want you to know which decisions stay with you and which parts I will manage. You should be able to stay in control of your business without having to run the campaign yourself.
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How much does Digital PR cost in Australia? Start with the scope · Digital PR vs link building: which does your business need? · How to measure Digital PR results beyond backlinks · When is a small business ready for Digital PR?
