Companies wanting to make the most of their public relations budgets have an alternative to traditional public relations agencies.
It's called pay-for-performance PR, said Marcia Friedman, whose firm provides this kind of service. There are only a handful of agencies that operate on this fee basis amongst the tens of thousands of PR firms throughout the entire U.S. Most firms that operate in this manner set a simple fee for each media placement the firm obtains and the client signs up for a campaign with a specific budget in place. Then, one by one, the placements are made, confirmed and executed and the client is billed weekly or monthly against their agreed-upon budget. The campaign never goes over budget, and every client dollar is counted against a real media placement rather than for "best efforts."Ms. Friedman said, "As marketing budgets are shrinking, companies are pinching pennies and seeking a more quantifiable return on their PR investment. Pay-for-performance PR not only reduces risk and costs the client less, but more importantly, these firms bring home the PR bacon for clients, or they don't get paid."
Marsha Friedman is the chief executive of Event Management Services, Inc. a performance-based public relations firm headquartered in Clearwater, FL. Its website is
