Ask HN: Any recommended PR firm for (cash-strapped) startup?

3 points by jerryji 13 years ago | 7 comments

I'm seeking PR service to generate awareness for my social/shopping startup at under $1000

Any recommendations?

orangethirty 13 years ago |

That's not enough money for a anything worthy.

jerryji 13 years ago | |

Thanks for the tip. So what should the budget be for something worthy?

trekky1700 13 years ago | | |

From my experience working for a web design company that also does PR, $1000 certainly won't get you much. A cheap PR firm will charge you at least $100/hour which affords you ten hours. Once meetings, planning and strategics are through, you won't have much left at all. My recommendation would be to learn some basic PR yourself and implement it that way.

I'm guessing by PR you want marketing, and it would be far cheaper and more valuable reading a bit up on it to get a grasp than hiring someone else to do it. Read FastCompany or Inc., they regularly post great articles on that sort of stuff that you can read quickly to learn some valuable base strategies/ideas.

And if you think you don't have time, remember that a PR firm isn't just going to open your website and work magic, they're going to want to spend hours going over your brand, your goals and more. You'll have to have meetings and explain a lot to them. In that time you could easily learn an adequate amount of PR strategies to at least implement something decent.

And I'm guessing if your budget is $1000 you don't need anything major to begin with, which means doing it yourself makes even more sense.

orangethirty 13 years ago | | |

Can't really say without knowing your core market. It varies between industries. But, a good starting budget for anything small is around $15K. That does not include a lot of side-costs, like media bribes and such (which is a reality these days).

Though I'm not sure if you are asking for PR or marketing. For a $1000 you can definitely get some good marketing going in many industries, though.

dsl 13 years ago | | |

A solid PR person in house will run you $85-95k/year. For a small boutique agency, expect to pay 2-5k a month plus per project costs. Large agencies have 20k/mo minimums.