Public relations consultants mainly refer to those individuals those specialise in PR. They could operate within an agency, or when talking in these terms, operate as freelancers, or experts for hire.

But when talking of consultants, the meaning in this situation is quite clear. You are hiring an individual as a consultant.

The idea is that such a consultant can provide a more in-depth service than possibly an agency team whose skill sets are spread across a wider range and a larger number of people. Consultants usually work on a more one to one basis and will offer advice in an ongoing situation where help maybe required on a fluid basis.

This might mean hiring a PR consultant which has particular expertise in a product launch, or say crisis management. They will work with a team to get the desired results and usually charge a project, or hourly fee.

But the important difference is that the consultant will usually offer a more intense service which is closely aligned to the client’s individuals needs.

And, of course, the consultant will usually be an expert in a particular field. Generalists are common, but consultants tend to focus on various specialist areas of experience and knowledge, and are employed for that reason. It may be to bolster an existing in-house team with a new skill, or add that skill to an external team.

Whatever the reason, the use of public relations consultants is widespread.

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The first thing you have to consider is your brief. Are you looking for a specialist agency, or one that can look at the your requirements in a wider sense of the marketing objective?

There’s also the choice between online PR and what can be best described as traditional, or offline PR. Now, arguably, the distinction between the two is becoming less defined, but you might have a special requirement for placing stories in print magazines for example, and in that case, online PR is not necessary.

The larger agencies tend to specialise in various disciplines (and have distinct divisions) and that’s great if you can break down your marketing brief into one of the main types of PR, including consumer, trade, corporate and financial.

But if the brief is more widespread, then a generalist agency can be a good answer, as they will have teams that can work across the whole brief and pull together a concerted effort.

The only real discipline that differs from this is financial PR. These are separate agencies (which still might have other capabilities of course) that have a particular mandate and are used mainly by companies to promote their image to the financial press and investment community.

So, remember, before you look out for a PR agency, ensure that you have a very definite brief and understanding as to what you require from your external resource.

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That’s not to say that traditional PR has run its course, or that the days of the hand delivered press release and a hoped for few inches in a national newspaper have gone forever. It’s just that online PR brings the marketing discipline into a new era.

Online press releases do carry weight and if picked up by more than the distribution services (many which are highly credible and well ranked sites themselves), can have a viral effect on the internet, bringing great kudos and attention to the originator of the news.

The trick of course is to tailor the online PR bump particularly for the internet and not as you would do for the magazine say Whippet Monthly.

Which is why most journalists in the UK have been retrained to understand the meaning of terms such as search engine optimisation and keywords.

There is a downside of course, in that much of the discipline of preparing a press release has gone out of the window, meaning that many examples released into the ether have bigger imaginations than Disney. It used to be that a traditional press release had to be accurate, truthful, informative and well written. Nowadays it’s a seemingly ugly free for all which destroys credibility.

So yes, online PR is great, but just check the source!

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