Most successful growth-stage companies understand the role of PR and its impact on credibility with their audience and stakeholders. The importance of public relations is clear until the revenue pressure begins to mount.
It’s often at this moment that the friction starts.
While the PR team creates genuine wins in brand authority and share of voice, leadership is focused on the increased attention turning into actual sales. As teams scale, executives move from a spending-led strategy to an ROI mindset. The PR budget moves from the strategic blueprint to the budget dashboard.
This is where leadership needs to look past “project vs. retainer.” Instead, founders should focus on revenue-centric visibility.
After the startup phase, executives naturally begin to look at where the money is really going. CFOs and founders begin to question if PR should be structured as independent projects or handled as an ongoing retainer. Project-based PR offers financial flexibility and contained goals, while retainers offer predictable costs and an established partnership.
The challenge for leadership is understanding bottlenecks and how long PR activity takes to translate into financial impact. Luckily, growth-minded business owners don’t have to choose.
A hybrid strategy allows businesses to develop a consistent PR foundation while having capital on hand for defining moments.
Contractor vs. Partner: How Project and Retainer PR Influence Revenue Outcomes
Executives are usually familiar with the differences in how project-based and retainer PR work. The challenge is learning how each model affects revenue over a specific timeframe.
The truth is that projects and retainers are playing very different roles. Project-based PR is designed for specific goals, like a funding announcement. It’s a good time to boost short-term visibility that increases demand early in the funnel. However, they won’t necessarily create long-term revenue growth. As the momentum fades, the revenue gains may be difficult to sustain.
Retainer PR typically influences revenue more gradually. Instead of focusing on a single product launch or press cycle, it keeps executives and brands visible and engaged in important industry conversations. Over time, familiarity makes it easier for leads to move forward through the buyer journey.
The difference between these two models extends beyond billing. It also shows up in how efficiently companies acquire and retain customers.
Project-based PR models often resemble independent-contractor engagements. Brands pay a fixed fee to concentrate traffic on a single moment or event. It’s a temporary relationship that can help improve inbound visibility and support lower customer acquisition costs.
On the other hand, retainer PR models work more like a long-term partnership. The focus shifts to cultivating existing relationships and strategic repetition. As trust builds over time, sales conversations become more natural, lifetime value improves, and revenue is less dependent on a single PR effort.
Driving Short-Term Revenue Growth With Project PR
Project-based PR is best saved for moments when you need to rise above the noise during pivotal moments. At the growth stage, these turning points fall within limited timeframes and require clarity, speed, and focused decision-making.
When a company announces a partnership, launches a product, or shares news about a funding round, the value of PR lies in its ability to reduce friction. Clear messaging helps prospects understand the news by communicating any changes, without sending mixed signals.
When momentum slows due to uncertainty, it can lead to lengthy back-and-forth that can slow down conversions. Project PR can remove this tension, using credible media coverage as external validation.
By influencing perception at key moments in the buyer journey, project PR can shorten sales timelines and build confidence among qualified leads, supporting faster deal advancement.
Supporting Long-Term Revenue Growth With Retainer PR
Retainer PR is often used by businesses when they are playing the long game. Rather than relying on a single high-impact announcement, brands focus on sustainable messaging to build a connection over time.
Increasing visibility and authority builds trust during those longer sales cycles. This approach prioritizes building meaningful relationships over capturing the latest headlines, giving buyers a better sense of the brand before moving through the sales pipeline.
Retainer PR functions like a marathon, while project PR operates more like sprints. Continuous dialogue creates a feedback loop, making companies aware of what narratives are connecting with the media and customers. Once brands identify these stories, they can refine messaging and move forward.
Consistency can build a competitive moat. When brands stay in conversations for months at a time, audiences begin to look at them differently. This familiarity can help move buyers through the sales process because the trust has already been established. At this moment, founders can recognize the compounding effects of PR. For growth-stage brands, it’s not just about visibility, but developing a reputation that can earn the trust of potential customers.
What Project and Retainer PR Look Like in Practice
To understand how PR structure affects revenue, we need to look at how founders rely on it. Let’s review a case study of two hypothetical growth-stage SaaS companies with very different approaches to public relations and what it means for revenue.
Company A: Project-Based PR
In this model, growth-stage companies focus on building momentum around a high-leverage moment. Teams try to make a meaningful splash when they have the attention of prospects, before focusing on capturing that market interest.
Here’s how that typically looks:
- Earned media strategies are put in place when there is a major announcement or news story.
- Awareness jumps around key announcements and partnerships.
- Quiet periods follow this news, sometimes for months at a time.
- Prospects who enter the funnel long after the news cycle may need more trust-building during sales conversations.
- Additional paid leads are often needed to work through unpredictable earnings periods.
This model is beneficial when timing is paramount. It creates short but significant increases in visibility during high-impact stages of a buyer journey. But what it doesn’t do well is maintain this momentum once the story isn’t in the spotlight, which can lead to a slow decrease in revenue over time.
Company B: Retainer-Led PR
Company B approaches PR using the “slow and steady wins the race” mindset. Instead of focusing on a single new moment to announce, it carefully develops a clear narrative and builds momentum over a longer timeframe.
That generally includes:
- Founders and executives appearing regularly on high-value media channels and in industry conversations.
- Consistent messaging, even without specific news-worthy events.
- Prospects becoming familiar with a brand early and staying connected through different stages of the sales cycle.
- Questions being answered gradually, building trust.
- Revenue growth that remains steady between product launches and partnership announcements.
Retainer PR supports revenue continually, establishing trust and reducing friction along the way. Media relations tend to improve, and as visibility increases, it can create a domino effect that strengthens audience trust.
What the Case Study Shows Us
Both models can generate substantial revenue for businesses, but they do it on very different timelines. Project PR tends to drive short-term engagement, while retainer-led PR improves visibility over time.
The challenge with relying only on project-based PR is the gaps between announcements. Long quiet periods can create the perception that momentum has stalled, raising red flags for prospects who discover a brand long after a news story is published.
Retainer PR can help fill those gaps. Visibility signals to media outlets and core audiences that business is active and trustworthy, even when there isn’t headline news.
Moving Beyond a Single PR Model
Growth-stage revenue is rarely predictable. Some buyers move quickly, others take much longer to build trust.When public relations rely on a single model, it can create unexpected gaps at inconvenient times.
Project PR is effective when brands need to establish instant clarity. Retainer PR is more understated, supporting credibility quietly between big announcements. Used together, brands can stay visible during more stages of the buyer journey.
Immediate Impact Vs. Long-Term Value
Both models show up at different times in the sales cycle. Some moments require direct messaging while others depend on consistent exposure that builds credibility.
Using the different models gives brands more coverage across the funnel, playing to their strengths when it matters most.
Project PR builds initial interest, while Retainer PR can continue important discussions between big moments, while providing a human touch.
How Different PR Structures Influence Revenue Strategy
PR structure shapes behavior for a brand. For short-term projects, success is defined by moving fast and seeing quick returns, even if the momentum is only short-lived.
With a retainer, the mood is different. Because the relationship is ongoing, the partner is likely to care deeply about how business performs over time. The focus shifts to long-term positioning, and retainer partners become invested in supporting sustainable revenue growth and metrics that C-level executives actually care about.
Choosing a PR Model That Scales
As businesses transition from early traction to sustained growth, understanding how PR affects revenue begins to shift. What may have started as momentum building moments and quick wins now need long-term support to sustain confidence and credibility.
Many founders have trouble assessing PR ROI when the focus is on individual stories instead of how those efforts fit into a revenue strategy. At the growth stage, the structure of a PR strategy plays a vital role in market dominance.
At Avenue Z, our PR experts can help you choose the right strategies for your brand. Contact us and work with a team that truly understands PR’s impact on revenue.
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