Sentinel InsightsWhat does a PR agencyactually do all month?

A public relations agency earns attention and trust for a company in the media its customers, investors and future hires already follow. So what does a public relations agency do day to day? It finds the stories worth telling, pitches them to reporters, editors and podcast hosts, prepares the people who’ll speak on the record, protects the company’s reputation when something goes wrong, and reports on what ran and who saw it.

The work is mostly invisible until it lands. A founder quoted in a trade journal, a data story picked up by business desks, a podcast interview your sales team can send to prospects: each of those started weeks earlier with research, a pitch and a lot of follow-up. This guide walks through the services, a typical month, what results look like, how agencies charge and how to choose one.

What public relations means

The Public Relations Society of America defines it this way: “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” That definition, published on PRSA’s site, is broad on purpose. Publics can mean customers, reporters, regulators, employees, investors or local communities.

In practice, most companies hire an agency for one main reason: to be seen and trusted by the people who’ll decide whether to buy from them, invest in them or work for them. The media is the main route, because a reporter’s coverage or a host’s interview carries credibility that a company’s own ads can’t.

What does a public relations agency do? The core services

Agencies package their work differently, but most of it falls into a handful of services.

• Media relations. Researching which reporters cover your field, pitching them stories and experts, and answering their requests quickly. Our guide to what media relations is covers this in more depth.
• Story development. Turning product news, company data, customer trends and leadership views into angles a reporter would actually want to cover.
• Press releases and announcements. Writing releases for funding, launches, partnerships and hires, and deciding whether each one needs wire distribution, direct pitching or both.
• Executive visibility. Bylines, opinion pieces, podcast guest spots, speaking slots and LinkedIn content for founders and senior leaders.
• Digital PR. Data-led campaigns built to earn coverage and links from online publications, which also help search and AI visibility. Most of these campaigns run for a quarter or longer, from data gathering to the last round of pitching.
• Reputation and crisis support. Preparing statements, monitoring coverage and reviews, and advising on how to respond when criticism appears.
• Measurement and reporting. Logging every piece of coverage, who it reached and what it did for the business, and adjusting the plan.

Some agencies also handle paid placements, sponsored features and media buying. That can be useful, as long as paid items are clearly labelled and reported separately from earned coverage.

How a typical month runs

Most retainers follow a similar rhythm, and knowing it helps you judge whether an agency is doing the work.

1. Planning. The agency agrees the month’s priorities with you: which stories, which outlets, which spokespeople.
2. Research. It builds or updates media lists, reads what target reporters have written recently and checks what competitors are saying.
3. Writing. Pitches, releases, bylines, briefing notes and likely-question sheets get drafted and sent to you for approval.
4. Outreach. Personal pitches go out, followed up once or twice. Reactive opportunities, such as a reporter looking for comment on breaking news, get answered the same day.
5. Interviews. The agency preps your spokesperson, sits in where useful and follows up with the reporter afterwards.
6. Reporting. Coverage is logged as it lands, and the month closes with a review of what worked and what to change.

If you can’t see most of these steps in an agency’s reports, ask why. Good agencies share media lists and pitch drafts, so you know exactly how your company is being represented.

What results to expect, and what to be wary of

Public relations works through other people’s decisions. Editors choose what to publish, and hosts choose who to book. That’s what makes earned coverage credible, and it’s also why no honest agency can promise a specific article in a specific outlet.

Realistic results from a few months of steady work include:

• coverage in a handful of trade and business outlets your buyers actually read;
• one or two spokespeople who reporters start to call for comment;
• bylines and podcast interviews your sales team can share;
• more mentions in the sources AI assistants cite when people ask about your category;
• a clearer, more consistent story about what your company does.

Be wary of agencies that promise guaranteed placements in big-name outlets for a flat fee. Those are often paid features or contributor posts sold as earned coverage. Paid placements can be worth buying, but you should know what you’re paying for, and so should your readers. Our media placement page explains how we choose sponsored features and label them as paid.

How PR agencies charge

Pricing models vary, but you’ll mostly see three.

• Monthly retainers. A fixed fee for an agreed scope of ongoing work. This is the most common model, because media relationships and story pipelines take months to build.
• Project fees. A one-off price for a launch, a funding announcement or a single campaign.
• Pay for placement. A fee charged only when coverage appears. It sounds low-risk, but it pushes agencies towards easy, low-value placements and away from stories that need time.

For reference, Sentinel’s Digital PR retainers are $3,500, $7,500 and $14,000 a month, and Founder PR is $3,000 a month. Every price we charge is listed on our pricing page.

How to judge a PR agency before you sign

A few questions separate agencies that will do the work from those that won’t.

• Who will actually write my pitches and talk to reporters, and how much of their time do I get?
• Can I see a sample media list for my sector before we start?
• How do you label earned, placed and paid coverage in reports?
• What will you do in the first 30 days?
• What happens if a story isn’t landing after a month or two?

Look for plain answers and a willingness to say no to ideas that won’t work. An agency that tells you a story isn’t newsworthy is saving you money. At Sentinel, every opportunity is judged on audience, relevance, credibility, positioning and business goal, and every item sits in one live coverage log, labelled earned, placed or paid. Our how we work page explains the process.

When it makes sense to hire one

An agency is worth considering when you have something to say and no one with the time or contacts to say it well. Common triggers include a funding round, a product launch, entering a new market, a founder who wants a bigger public profile, or a reputation problem that keeps showing up in search results.

It’s usually too early if you don’t yet know who your customers are, or if there’s no news, data or expertise to build stories from. In that case, spend a quarter sharpening your positioning first. The PR will go further when it starts. A hypothetical example: a software company with a clear buyer, a new usage dataset and a founder who enjoys talking about the market is ready. A company still testing three different audiences, with nothing new to share, would get more from a positioning sprint than from a retainer.

If you’re weighing up support, our services overview shows what Sentinel runs, from digital PR and media placement to AI search visibility and reputation management.