It’s a tough perception to break. Fueled by thousands of billable hours and countless (often worthless) deliverables, large agencies know how to do one thing well: sell time and bill for it.
The crisis has shaken out many of the large PR and marketing agencies nationwide with restructuring, cut costs, and unimaginable losses in business.
As much as large agencies create an image and a name for themselves (which really only pays tribute to the combined expertise of the agency’s staff), why would a client prefer to spend thousands on a huge PR agency versus a grounded independent contractor, or a boutique agency? The answers vary widely on this, below are some brief thoughts on why a contractor and/or a smaller agency can be much more effective for client needs:
- Small means flexible. Period. Huge agencies are cumbersome.
- Small means real communication from the CEO. Big agencies have interns taking client calls and bringing coffee into the hi-tech conference room.
- Small offers true experts, since it cannot afford fluff staff. Large agencies are large, which is why they have to lose the weight in tough economic times
- Small means really great work. It’s the agency’s bread and butter and credibility. It’s all small agencies have. Big agencies already have the solid branding, so they can get away with doing much less for a lot more
- Small understands the word budget and works with it. Big agencies have billable hours. And they bill for everything.
Most importantly, small agencies offer real relationships that have the potential of becoming seamless with the client’s business needs, particularly because they have the ability to be very responsive. Large agencies tend to position themselves as an extension of their clients’ business. They can take forever with the approval process, and the myriads of people the work has to go through to get anywhere. And of course you get billed for that, too!
I am sure there are a lot more points to discuss and this was just a brief post on the topic of outsourcing PR. And sometimes, big clients just want big agencies… Although, honestly, crisis or not, who wants to pay for extensions?