Why pay an expensive PR agency retainer fee, if all you need is an occasional press release?

The marketing manager of a leading carpet manufacturer was being plagued by PR agencies who all wanted to charge a four-figure monthly retainer fee for a service that he didn't really need. By recommendation, I was invited to meet him and the releases I've done for the company since then have probably saved him hundreds of pounds.

If you know your target media (which you should do) and you don't need fancy events and stunts, why do you need an expensive PR agency to simply propose a media schedule? Instead, let me write the press release, you send it off to your targets and knock a nought or two off your budget.

Testimony to my ability in this respect was a recent announcement of additional patterns in the company's stain-resistant range, much of which was inevitably technical and logistical information. I was asked to write the release.

Editors are notorious for just picking the bones from releases sent to them and adding their own headlines to empathise with their editorial style or, more likely, to justify their own creative prowess. Much of the content I supplied was reproduced word for word and in this case the headline I proposed was:
Stain resistance to dye for

And the headline that Retail Floors magazine chose to run with?
Stain resistance to dye for

How often does that happen then?