One of the ideas we still encounter when talking with companies interested in strengthening their communications is that Public Relations necessarily requires a significant investment, an annual contract, and a constant flow of news to justify the work. Under this logic, a growing company, a startup looking to position itself in a market, or a B2B company with a small marketing team would have few opportunities to develop a PR strategy until reaching a certain size.
In practice, the size of a company says much less about the need for Public Relations than the stage the business is in. A company may have twenty employees and need to build credibility to enter a new market, while a considerably larger organization may already have enough recognition to not require an ongoing campaign. There are also companies that need communications support during a launch, an expansion, to position a spokesperson, or when they begin competing for customers who will research who is behind a proposal before making a decision.
The relevant question, then, should not be whether a company is large enough to invest in Public Relations, but what it needs to achieve and for how long it needs to do so.
This discussion becomes more important at a time when marketing budgets are under much stricter review. 2026 CMO Gartner's Survey shows that marketing budgets remain practically flat and represent an average of 7.8% of revenue among the organizations surveyed, while 56% of marketing leaders believe they do not have the budget needed to execute their strategy. Although the study is focused mainly on large organizations, it reflects a pressure that we also observe among smaller companies: every investment needs to have a clearer objective, and there is less willingness to maintain activities simply because they have always been done that way.
At CEMPR Digital, we have spoken with companies that come to us looking for an annual Public Relations strategy when what they actually need is to address a much more specific objective, but the opposite also happens: companies that rule out PR because they assume they will have to commit to a budget for twelve months when their needs could be addressed through a project lasting a few weeks or months. Defining the scope correctly from the beginning allows resources to be used more efficiently and prevents Public Relations from becoming an oversized service for the actual needs of the business.
Doing Public Relations Does Not Mean Being in the Media All the Time
A strategy can begin by positioning one or two spokespeople, introducing a company to media outlets relevant to its industry, or developing a campaign around a launch. In other cases, it may make sense to develop opinion content, work on interviews for a few months, or support a specific moment in the business and then pause to evaluate the results.
This also changes the way the budget should be understood. Hiring a Public Relations agency should not automatically mean entering into a model designed for a multinational corporation, because there are projects where the scope can be adjusted according to the number of activities, markets, spokespeople, and objectives the organization actually needs. A company looking to begin building its presence can work with a limited strategy and expand it as opportunities arise, while another may require an ongoing operation from the start because of the amount of information it generates and its exposure to different audiences.
Flexibility, however, should not be confused with carrying out isolated activities without a strategy behind them. Sending an occasional press release or seeking an interview when there is an urgent need may generate some results, but it is unlikely to build reputation if each activity responds to a different objective. Even a small project needs to define what the company wants to position, who it needs to reach, which stories it can genuinely tell, and what role Public Relations will play within its business and marketing objectives.
This analysis is particularly important for B2B companies, where the audience may be much smaller but each business opportunity can represent considerable value. A company selling enterprise technology, financial services, consulting, or specialized solutions probably does not need to appear in front of millions of people; it needs a much more specific group of potential customers to find enough references to understand what it does, why it has experience, and who the people behind the business are.
Public Relations can contribute precisely to this process when it is designed according to the company's reality rather than based on a predetermined formula. The objective may be to build awareness, support a demand generation strategy, open conversations within an industry, strengthen the presence of its executives, or prepare the ground before entering a new market, and each of these scenarios requires different scopes and timelines.
“Many companies approach Public Relations thinking first about how much it will cost them to retain an agency every month, when the conversation should begin with what they want to achieve. There are cases where continuity is necessary and others where a well-defined project can address a specific need. What matters is that the scope makes sense for the stage the company is in,” says Jaime Roa, Managing Partner of CEMPR Digital.
This way of working also makes it possible to evaluate results more clearly, because a project created to support a launch should not be measured using the same indicators as a strategy designed to position a company throughout the year. Media coverage will continue to be an important reference, but companies can also look at the quality and relevance of the media outlets reached, interview opportunities, spokesperson positioning, referral traffic, brand searches and, whenever possible, the relationship between that exposure and other marketing activities.
Thinking about Public Relations in this way opens the door to companies that may previously have considered it beyond their reach, but it also requires agencies to build proposals that are more closely aligned with the actual needs of each organization. Some will require an ongoing relationship, while others will achieve better results by working in stages, campaigns, or specific projects. The investment begins to make more sense when the strategy starts with the problem the business needs to solve and the scope is built around that objective, rather than adapting the company to a predefined package of services.
