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If you are hiring outside help for your public relations and content marketing, sooner or later the conversation turns to money: what the work will cost and how your vendor wants to be paid.
It pays to settle that early. Paying by the hour, by the project or on a monthly retainer each makes sense in different situations, and the right answer comes out of a clear scope of work agreed on by both sides.
A clear scope of work decides the right billing model.
Think about taking a truck in for detailing. The shop hands you a rate card and the price depends on the result you want. Behind that card is a calculation of time, materials and crew.
Marketing services work the same way. How many hours will the work take? Are there hard costs such as photography, printing or distribution? Will other vendors be involved, and do you want one invoice or several? Those questions, and a few more, produce an accurate estimate.
Because marketing is a service business, consultants like us work from a set hourly rate that reflects the fair market value of our expertise in the niche industries we serve. Ours is $100 an hour, published on our Pricing page. With that rate as the foundation, we work with each client to choose the billing method that fits.
The advantage of hourly billing is simplicity. We work 10 hours, you are billed for 10 hours. It is also an easy way to start working with a new client who is not ready for an ongoing commitment.
The drawback is that there is no commitment on either side. You are not obligated to send more work and we are not obligated to hold time for you. Once the estimated hours are used, we move on to other client work.
On a project basis we estimate a fixed price for the entire job, including deadlines and any outsourcing, to be completed in a set period. This is common on larger projects with a defined start and end, such as a product launch or a trade show press kit.
The advantage is that scope and price are set before work begins, which helps both sides manage the bottom line and gives you priority access to our team for the life of the project. The drawback is that scope changes have to be documented and re-estimated. When that does not happen, somebody ends up unhappy.
A retainer sets a monthly budget and an agreed number of hours we will be available to work on your projects each month. In return you get priority access to our skills and expertise. For a proactive PR program that runs all year, this is usually the most cost-effective option.
To keep retainers honest, we help clients set the budget based on what they want to accomplish, allocate hours against that amount and then track and report those hours every month. That keeps the scope on target and lets both sides see that the relationship is still a win.
Remember that PR is a service business. You have to give your vendor something to do and pay them fairly to do it. Beyond that, the best advice we can offer is to find a team you like, trust and want to work with. See how Pricing works or visit ‣ to talk through your needs.