In-House PR vs Agency PR: Key Differences & Career Impacts

Whether you’re a business looking to add a PR element to your brand or you’re trying to kickstart your PR career, understanding the difference between agency PR and in house PR can help you decide who to employ or where to work.

In-house

Hiring in house PR can feel more secure for business. You’ll have a dedicated team focused solely on your brand and nothing else and who knows your brand better than someone who actually works for you, especially if you’re in a more technical field.

If you’re looking to work for a brand's in-house PR team,you’ll come to learn the ins and outs of the brand and become very specialised in your field. This is a good career route for those solely focused on one sector whether that’s fashion, technology or beauty.

In house PR means that you won’t have to work with any businesses that you don’t want to - it’s just one!

Agency

The benefits of hiring an agency to do your PR is that they’ll already have hundreds of contacts with journalists and the media that will be relevant to helping your business. They’ll have established relationships and will be pitching stories to journalists every day of the week. Because of this it will be easier to get your business out there and get coverage.

It’s very easy to have tunnel vision and only focus on your businesses and what you are doing. Because agencies handle multiple clients, they’ll have a better understanding of overall current trends, news and the bigger picture in general. This can help give you a fresh perspective on your business - they can bring new ideas and help you refresh your brand message and what you stand for.

Working for an agency is a great option for those starting out in their career, it’ll give you the chance to gain experience in different sectors with different clients to figure out what you enjoy. Working for an agency and with a range of clients also means that no day is the same so it’s perfect for people who want more of that “every day is different” career. You might be content planning for one client one day and then putting together a campaign for another the next.