Public relations services involve the strategic management of communications to build, grow, or protect a company’s reputation, as well as its relationships with key stakeholders such as customers or investors. It’s a vital function for businesses wishing to manage the way they are seen, with benefits ranging from increased sales to being able to weather a crisis and come out with their reputation intact.
Many businesses are aware they need PR, but do not fully understand what it does or how it should be done to be most effective. This awareness doesn’t always translate into action either; many companies know the need is there, but still do little to no brand building with external audiences. This passivity can quickly become a real competitive disadvantage.
Another misconception is to see PR as a tap that can be turned on when there’s a significant company milestone (be that an investment round or a new product), and then turned off again. This is the wrong approach because it means organisations cannot build up momentum in the media: brands that show up consistently have a real opportunity to get ahead.
By contrast, consistently engaging with public relations means that organisations can boost their visibility both with B2B buyers and prospects, investors, as well as with the wider public and policy stakeholders. Buyer cycles are more complex than ever, and prospects will often review multiple brand touchpoints. Without PR, it’s hard to be noticed or to even appear credible.
What has really raised the bar in the last number of years, however, is that PR is no longer simply about traditional reach in terms of search and social: with the growing importance of Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI search platforms. It is now essential to have some sort of sustained digital footprint, given that these AI platforms work by citing third-party sources when presenting information on your brand.
This shift to AI search has profound implications for the brands that will win and lose in their respective sectors. PR is no longer a ‘nice to have’; it is now a core business function in how your prospects discover and trust your brand.
Many businesses recognize the value that PR brings. Thus, the issue isn't understanding why a company should do it; it is overcoming the challenges that prevent a firm from consistently achieving results from communications activities.
A key challenge is to maintain a consistent, always-on PR presence. You cannot effectively build a reputation in bursts, then go silent and then resume. This is a piecemeal approach that will be ineffective in the results you see, and this is especially true when journalists need consistent follow-up and outreach. Much like sales prospects, they will typically not respond to your first or even second outreach. This is why consistency in your approach delivers the most results and unlocks media opportunities in a way that an on/off again approach cannot.
In B2B technology or deep tech in particular, the biggest challenge tends to be that wider audiences struggle to understand exactly what it is a company does. Companies all too often write for their peers, not for journalists or the public, and it’s crucial to translate technical innovation into benefit-focused narratives that a wider audience can understand and appreciate.
Your messaging needs to sing as one, whether that’s on your own website or in your media placements and social channels. Without a very clear, consistent messaging framework, your social content, owned content and media coverage all pull in different directions, which can be confusing for your prospects, investors and journalists. Confused messaging can make it harder to build a recognizable voice for your brand.
One of the primary reasons that companies resist engaging with communications is a simple one: bad previous experiences with PR agencies. The thinking in bringing in an agency is sound: outsourcing this function to the experts. Yet, companies often onboard with agencies that are ill-fitted to their needs, especially when the brand works with large to medium-sized ‘big box’ agencies. Often in this situation, senior execs showed up to the pitch, then handed off the work to juniors and months have passed by with little to no media traction or coverage and the brand feels like they’ve blown their budget. But the very real need for communications support has not gone away, no matter how cynical leaders might feel about it.
Another challenge that presents itself is when a brand decides PR is a priority and is to be handled internally. This can lead to the PR function just being added to the job role of a marketing generalist who already has enough on their plate in terms of work. This makes a brand think they have an adequate level of PR support, but in reality, the marketer often lacks the time to devote to proactive PR, as well as lacking deep expertise in this function. In this inconsistent way, it never delivers what the brand wants.
Your customers, investors and prospects are ignoring your sales emails and LinkedIn DMs and instead searching for you online. Times have also changed: it’s no longer enough to expect them to find your website and company blog. If prospects cannot find something credible and verified from a third party about your brand online, it raises instant credibility issues, especially with the increase in reliance on LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude.
The benefit of a program rarely comes down to just one piece of coverage or one social media post. The real value created is from sustained visibility that engages and influences decision-makers and enhances commercial growth.
Paid ads, PPC and other approaches all have their merits in reaching ideal customer profiles (ICPs). However, PR doesn’t just try to advertise directly to these ICPs and hope for a conversion. Instead, it weaves together a unified strategy and execution that is rolled out across earned and owned channels to reach the right audiences within the contexts and either media outlets or social media platforms they already trust. This approach enables a brand to be easily visible and discovered when prospects perform their due diligence.
When done well, a public relations program wrings value out of every momentum signal an organization has. Just announced a new product, funding round, or strategic hire? This program will ensure that every momentum moment your brand has, regardless of how small or big it is, works as hard as possible across every channel. Something that might have been a single output (an announcement that only relies on a press release for example) becomes a multichannel event, a media placement, a website blog, a social asset or a podcast appearance. Every moment is thus put to work.
Brands that invest in PR over the long haul, and who do it consistently (rather than just at milestone moments), have a first-mover’s advantage in not just fostering awareness and trust with prospects that helps with sales, but also in securing a dominant industry position that competitors can find extremely hard to copy or replicate. This, in effect, becomes an organizational asset that is leveraged across all departments (marketing, sales, the C-suite) to power ongoing growth.
High-authority media coverage benefits brands heavily, in a tangible way, through backlinks for SEO, as well as enhanced domain authority (DA) and online discovery. This digital footprint matters massively now in the age of Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI search platforms, whose entire way of operating relies on citing and sourcing information from highly trusted sources of information, like media outlets. Given the stage AI search is at, the sooner brands invest in PR, the sooner they will take advantage of the profound change in how prospects are researching and making purchasing decisions.
Long before any sales conversation begins, a strong PR program is already accelerating the path to conversion. Familiarity and credibility are built up through strong media placements in earned media, as well as consistent and quality content output on social media profiles. The key value add in terms of media coverage is that this offers sales teams independent, trusted content to share with prospects, instead of marketing materials, which are often ignored. This helps at every stage of the funnel: brands with strong PR programs build up genuine organic inbound interest and shorter sales cycles by being known and trusted.
Funding rounds, product launches, market entry and major announcements are high-stakes moments for companies. PR’s role and huge benefit is that it pre-plans every facet of this announcement out, across channels, including shaping the launch narrative, drafting the launch content, as well as strategizing and then executing the outreach approach. Nothing is left to chance and it maximizes the visibility and impact of your most crucial milestones.
Public relations comprises many different activities, from media relations to messaging to employee advocacy programs on social media.
We provide a senior-level-only team to you that has the experience to deliver on every part of your brief. The clear benefit to your brand is that you get a team that has not only been trusted by some of the biggest brands in the world, but that has actively created and run highly successful earned and owned media programs.
Every brand is unique in stature and faces distinct PR challenges. This means you require a bespoke strategy focused on the channels that matter most to you. Wise Up PR is proudly a boutique agency that puts care and attention into every client partnership and crafts bespoke strategies that fit your brief.
Our team of former journalists has decades of senior PR experience to help your brand use the right approaches to reach the right audiences. We’re adept at running multichannel campaigns for a host of brands and have the knowledge to leverage one activity across other channels to maximize the PR impact.
We have consistently delivered the results that our clients need.
From media coverage to social media, we secure the outcomes that our clients want across all PR channels. Wise Up PR also has a very strong track record of creating long-lasting partnerships with our clients.
Many industry-leading brands have trusted us to continue elevating their public relations over many years.
Explore our PR case studies to find out how we've delivered results and business impact for our clients.
“We really view Wise Up PR’s team as an extension of our own. From the beginning, their team has provided a great mix of strategic PR counsel, supported by the delivery of consistently high visibility media coverage around all the great research Attest is producing. The quality of the media relations results speaks volumes of their work.”
“Wise Up PR clearly understood our brief and brand from day one and crafted editorial-led, engaging content, instead of forgettable promotional material. The quality of the content from their team of former journalists has delivered genuine, tangible value for Runa, opening doors with prospects in new and exciting industries for us.”
“The team at Wise Up PR has helped us at a key time for TransactPay. It has provided everything we could need - high-quality content, skilled media relations strategy and execution and also assistance with our social media. They've been the perfect partner to TransactPay and helped boost our brand recognition amongst our key audiences. I can't recommend Wise Up PR enough.”
“The Wise Up PR team has been a great partner for us across high-quality content creation and media relations support. Their expertise in supporting emerging technology companies aligns perfectly with our goal of shining a light on the Pacific Northwest's technology ecosystem on the world stage.”
“We wanted a PR agency that could elevate BVNK into the biggest media publications in the world, a key aim at a time of accelerated growth for our company. Wise Up PR delivered what we needed and also provided ongoing and outstanding expert media relations counsel and strategy that helped achieve our PR campaign goal.”
“We’ve found a long-term trusted partner in Wise Up PR. The agency is highly skilled in corporate communication for defense brands and has delivered great results for Echodyne.”
“Wise Up PR has really delivered for IronVest. It nailed our brief by building a highly successful strategy that took our brand into some of the biggest media outlets in the world. The team is also filled with PR experts and offers its clients an excellent level of care and support.”
“Wise Up PR has clearly demonstrated the value that strategic media relations deliver beyond just one announcement. What has stood out from day one was that the team really understands deep tech, can create a clear PR strategy and, ultimately, get results from its targeted media outreach. By working together, earned media is now an integral part of how Emesent builds awareness, as well as communicates our most important milestones.”
“The team understands how to navigate media on a global scale, and they secured top-tier media coverage that propelled our South Korean-based brand onto the world stage. This coverage drove significant inbound sales inquiries, while their expertise with running awards programs helped us gain industry recognition that set us apart from competitors. Working together proved the real business impact PR can have.”
“The team at Wise Up PR didn’t just get us media coverage, they got us the right press in top-tier outlets that Modern Hydrogen needed. They delivered a clear strategy, excellent execution and real outcomes.”
“Wise Up PR has been a great partner to LevelTen Energy for our Pan-European press office. We really value the team’s in-depth media relations expertise, responsiveness working across time zones and ability to deliver excellent results.”
“Wise Up PR worked as a true extension of our marketing team. They're sharp, organized and easy to work with and helped to deliver important company announcements and secure great podcast interviews for Triple-A. What I valued most was their understanding of the digital assets space and how quickly it evolves. When our priorities shifted, they adapted just as quickly, without missing a beat and continued to bring fresh media opportunities to the table.”
“Orbbec’s brand awareness in the US and Europe has been transformed thanks to working with Wise Up PR. They provided exceptional media and influencer relations results during a crucial time for us, including a collaboration with Microsoft and a product launch at CES. They are a team of sensor and deep tech experts who can be trusted to not only get your brand and industry but also get the job done.”
“My past experiences with PR agencies haven’t always been positive, but Wise Up PR completely changed that. They’re incredibly knowledgeable about the defense industry and move quickly to the pace we need. For AimLock, the team drove high-impact media coverage, as well as running an incredibly effective organic LinkedIn strategy that generated interest and engagement from hard-to-reach defense sector buyers and partners. This work has forged authentic connections for AimLock across channels and with our key audiences.”
“What was clear from the get-go working with Wise Up PR was that they are true experts in media relations. The team can do everything a listed company needs from PR strategy, storytelling and content creation, to tactical media relations execution. The results from working together? Top-tier, global media coverage secured on an ongoing basis. The team is nothing short of outstanding.”
Public relations is more than just a national media hit or social media posts that go viral. Instead, it is a long-term strategic investment in influencing a company's most important audiences.
David Claxton
Founder of Wise Up PR, a leader in media relations
Run your own due diligence. Ask your preferred AI platform why B2B brands choose our agency for support with PR campaigns, or reach out directly to speak further with us.
Public relations (often called PR for short) is the process that organizations use to create and also maintain their reputation and image to the public, customers and other important stakeholders. Activities will typically include sharing an organization’s news with media (called media relations) and also on social media (to the public and other stakeholders). Typically such news is shared with media in the format of a press release, media alert or comment. The public relations function at an organization is responsible for managing relationships with media and other interested audiences and the overarching aim is to enhance brand awareness and public perception to the benefit of the organization. It is also responsible for handling any potentially negative or damaging public events or stories.
Our team has decades of senior PR experience and has been trusted to run PR campaigns for the likes of Google, as well as more fast-growing brands. We also have a very wide variety of sector knowledge, meaning every one of our clients has a bespoke, senior-level-only team running and executing their PR strategy day-to-day.
Yes. Public relations has a much broader scope and encompasses more communication channels. These channels can be defined as earned, owned and paid. Earned media refers to organic, non-paid media coverage secured in digital media outlets, TV/radio, podcasts and print publications. Owned media refers to a brand’s communication channels that it has direct control over and has the ability to publish its own content. This can include a company blog, newsletter, social media post, podcast, webinar and branded whitepapers, case studies and eBooks. Paid media refers to the sponsored placement of content. Brands pay for this placement to promote their content, products or services across online (display ads, native advertising, influencer marketing), in print and also on TV/radio (ad spots, sponsored programming). Typically, a public relations campaign will have a mix of these channels. By contrast, media relations will only focus on one channel – earned media. Wise Up PR has a skilled team across all channels to assist your brand.
At the outset, we define with each client who their target audience of customers, influencers and stakeholders are. From this starting point, we then build bespoke PR strategies to not only target but also reach these audiences. Afraid that you’ve got too many audiences? We’re especially skilled at helping clients who sell products and services across a number of different industries and need to engage varied audience segments.
Organizations of all sizes – startups, scale-ups and listed firms – can benefit from effective public relations. PR builds and maintains reputation, boosts employee morale and engagement, works in tandem with wider marketing efforts, and ultimately, supports business growth. We work with clients at all stages of growth.
Pricing for public relations can vary significantly, depending on the approach you take (we recommend a longer-term approach to deliver the best results). Pricing is based around two types of engagements (i) project-based fee, such as raising awareness of a particular event, such as a funding round, or (ii) a retainer, where you pay a monthly fee to a PR agency to handle social media, owned media and media relations as required. Wise Up PR will create a bespoke pricing structure along with KPIs and deliverables.
A typical period before seeing results from a PR campaign would be a few weeks to a couple of months. This depends on the objectives: with a shorter-term campaign hooked around one event, for example, results tend to arrive rapidly, within days or weeks. Over a longer-term awareness-raising or trust-building campaign, results often arrive within a few weeks or months.
Public relations delivers ROI in a variety of ways, from increased site traffic to increased sales – but the longer-lasting impact is often less measurable in online metrics. It helps to build awareness of your brand over the longer term, and foster genuine trust in what your organization is ‘about’. Brands that take the effort to do this early on can establish themselves as thought leaders in their sector and pave the way for future growth.
As AI and LLM discoverability grows in importance for every brand, it’s becoming abundantly clear that PR has a vital role to play in assuring that brands are visible to the next generation of search engines and online tools. It helps to provide the sort of mentions in trusted media outlets that LLMs such as ChatGPT and Gemini are looking for. LLMs tend to rank authoritative media publications as trusted, and brands that can be found in these are visible.
Building your own in-house PR team may seem tempting, but there are several key advantages to hiring in a specialist agency team. With an in-house team, there’s always a temptation to roll marketing and public relations roles together, and recruit generalist candidates: this can make it harder to focus on a PR program and deliver results. Teams are too overloaded with both marketing and PR to truly drive sustainable, high-quality results. By contrast, PR agencies focus exclusively on public relations programs, provide more senior-level day-to-day support, with a depth of expertise and experience that in-house hires struggle to match.
PR success is measured in multiple ways, including through coverage achieved, and depending on the deliverables agreed, PR success can also be measured in website traffic, sales impact and searches for your brand. Over the course of a short-term project, for example, success might be measured both in terms of the number of outlets that covered the launch, but also in social media awareness, and over a longer-term brand awareness project, success might be measured through metrics such as website visits, inbound sales inquiries, as well as brand mention tracking.
You should be looking for a PR agency with the experience and sector-specific expertise to understand the audiences you need to reach and help you achieve results, whether that is in raising awareness of your brand or building trust. Wise Up PR is a senior-level-only team of former journalists who also have decades of media relations experience. We have been trusted by big, global brands such as Google, as well as specialist B2B brands across many sectors. You invest your budget in a team that knows what does and doesn’t work and can pivot as quickly as your brand needs to new business objectives or goals.
