PR Firms

These firms are hired to get a company talked about by people it doesn't control: journalists, analysts, podcast hosts, industry commentators. The day-to-day work is pitching stories to specific reporters, drafting and placing press releases, briefing executives before interviews, ghostwriting bylines and LinkedIn posts for a founder who wants to sound like an expert, building out award and speaker-panel submissions, and running the rapid-response process when something goes wrong publicly. What changes for the customer is visible: articles in the trade press or national media, an executive quoted where their buyers actually read, a narrative that holds together across channels instead of contradicting itself.

People start looking for this when the silence around a company becomes a business problem, not just an ego one. A product launches and nobody outside the company notices. A competitor keeps turning up in the publications your prospects read, and you don't. A journalist calls about a layoff, a lawsuit, a data breach, or an executive's tweet, and there's no one who knows how to answer without making it worse. A founder is trying to raise a round or go public and needs to look credible to people who've never heard of the company. Sales keeps hearing 'never heard of you' on calls where the competitor gets name-recognition for free. None of that gets fixed by buying ad space; it needs someone with existing relationships and judgment about what's actually a story.

The firms differ mainly on who they know and what they're built for. Some are generalists running retainers across many sectors; others only work in one vertical, such as B2B tech, healthcare, fintech, or consumer, because that's where their journalist contacts and case studies actually sit. Some are built around steady media relations and thought leadership; others specialise in crisis and public affairs, which is a different skill set entirely and worth checking for explicitly if regulatory or reputational risk is the real concern. Size matters too: a boutique gives you senior attention and speed, a larger network gives you reach across markets and disciplines like SEO and paid social alongside earned media. When comparing, ask for the actual placements they've secured for clients like you, who on the team will do the work versus who sold you the pitch, how they price (retainer versus project), and what happens in the first 48 hours if a crisis breaks on their watch.