Digital PR in-housing involves a business taking control of its own digital PR activities. To do this, the business in question builds its own internal digital PR team, rather than relying on freelancers or external agencies. 

But, should you consider digital PR in-housing? Let’s take a look at the benefits and any potential drawbacks of delivering your digital PR in-house rather than using external suppliers. 

Benefits of Digital PR In-Housing 

Brands bring their digital PR activities in-house for many reasons, but some of the most popular include: 

Greater Efficiency

As an internal team works with the brand every day (rather than on a retained basis), they spend all their time devoted to it. This means that projects can be completed faster. 

Grow Internal Teams

In addition, in-housing digital PR activities helps brands grow their own internal teams. This helps a business fill skills and resources gaps, while also encouraging existing staff members to develop and learn new skills. 

Cost

The final consideration when it comes to in-housing is cost. Digital PR agencies can be incredibly expensive for businesses with limited marketing budgets. 

While the cost of taking on additional staff members to deliver digital PR isn’t cheap, these staff members are at least employed full-time by the business and can be moved to different departments to provide greater resources, if required. 

By contrast, if your brand signs a 12-month digital PR contract with an agency, you’re tied to that even if you don’t have a PR requirement for an extended period. 

Drawbacks in Digital PR In-Housing

Although there are lots of benefits to digital PR in-housing, there are also some drawbacks. These include: 

Tunnel Vision

As an in-house digital PR team only works for one business, it can lead to tunnel vision. This can ultimately lead to a lack of creativity and an inability to create compelling ideas and hooks because the team is unable to think ‘outside of the box’. This often occurs when the team gets too close to the brand. 

Knowledge 

Businesses that are in-housing digital PR often start with either one or two hires and then scale when they see ROI. However, although this makes the in-housing process cheaper, it often leads to a skills gap because 1-2 people cannot be good at every element of digital PR. 

Due to this, when in its infancy, the new in-house digital PR team may not be able to fully replicate the results that were achieved by the old third-party team. 

Thankfully, this issue can be overcome by a so-called hybrid approach where the new in-house team is initially supported by an external agency (such as the one that was used prior to the creation of the new team). In these instances, the outside agency may still provide consultancy around an area of weakness to fill the skills gap, such as ideation, media planning, campaign set-up, tracking or even training.

Should I In-House Digital PR? Our Final Thoughts 

In summary, the digital PR in-housing process is often worthwhile for brands. Although there can be teething pains while skills gaps are filled, digital PR in-housing usually provides more positives than negatives for businesses. 

To make the transition from external delivery to an in-house team as smooth as possible, we’d recommend trialling a hybrid approach for 3-6 months. This will help you identify and fill any skills gaps, while also ensuring your new team members have all of the support they need to thrive in their new roles.