Some solo PR operators are pushing back against the freelancer label, arguing it undersells the scale, strategy and client relationships involved in running a one-person or small-team communications business.

Elle Kress, founder of WorkTribes, a network of freelance PRs micro PR agencies, prompted discussion with a recent LinkedIn post, arguing that many independent PR professionals are not simply picking up ad hoc work between jobs but running serious PR businesses.

Kress, who also founded the Sydney-based micro PR agency HEY, GOOD NEWS, insists the distinction between a freelancer and a micro agency is not just semantic.

“There’s a few ways to differentiate a freelancer with a micro agency,” she told Influencing.

“A freelancer will be paid based on their time. Whereas a micro agency, much like an agency, is paid on deliverables. That enables a micro agency to scale.”

Kress said another distinction was that freelancers were often directed by what a client needed from them, while micro agencies were more likely to define their own services and allow clients to decide whether those services were the right fit.

She said she chose to reframe her own business as a micro agency once she realised it was operating more like a traditional PR agency.

“I realised that my business was building long-term partnerships with clients and very much operating like what a PR agency would be doing.”

Is it the skill set or the label?
Graham White runs the two-person agency Pratar with his wife after previously working for the likes of Ogilvy and Howorth Communications. He agrees with Kress that the label ‘freelancer’ can carry unhelpful connotations. But he also warned against getting too caught up in labels.

“At the end of the day, humans buy humans in terms of specialist skill set,” White said.

He points out many members of the WorkTribes community have worked in large agencies and built reputations before striking out on their own. That experience, more than the sign on the door, is what often brings in clients.

“I think that’s what carries you forward in terms of opening doors,” White said.

But White agrees with Kress that there’s a distinction between freelancers doing contracted work and micro agencies working with retained clients.

“From an optics perspective, we just want to make sure that we’re not being cast as freelancers that are just doing bits and bobs,” he said. “We [Pratar] are actually established in our own right. We just don’t happen to have lots of employees.”

Little Big Deal Consulting founder Lauren Nowak said the micro agency model could be especially valuable in high-stakes areas such as corporate communications and investor relations.

“I would argue that the micro-agency model actually works better in high-stakes environments because you are looking for a senior consultant,” she said.

“When you reach out to an agency like Little Big Deal, you want the senior person that has the experience. You don’t want it to be handed off to a junior.”

Nowak said her clients were often CEOs who needed senior corporate communications and investor relations support. “For me, I’m working directly with CEOs primarily who really need someone by their side,” she said.

Senior expertise without the overheads
The cost structure of micro agencies differs significantly from that of their larger peers. White said smaller agencies can offer senior expertise without the overheads associated with larger firms.

“If you wanted to get someone with 25 or 30 years’ experience at an agency, you’re probably at MD level, and you’re going to pay a significant hourly rate for that person compared to what I will charge for the same skill set through my smaller agency,” he said.

But Nowak said micro agencies should not be mistaken for hobby businesses with no real operating costs. “We’re not just a person in front of a computer in a bedroom,” she said.

Nowak noted independent operators still need media portal subscriptions, newspaper subscriptions, independent licences, Copyright Agency arrangements, media reporting and social listening tools.

“It all starts to add up,” she said.

For Nowak, the micro-agency model is not necessarily about doing everything alone. She brings in specialists, depending on what a client needs.

“I consider Little Big Deal to be a collective that brings together the best people for the job,” she said.

“I tell clients, ‘I will bring in the right professionals for the work that you need. I’ll bring in the best social media strategist or the best graphic designer to support the work.’”

Kress said she is seeing more PR professionals reframing their services as micro agencies and creating small teams with subcontractors. But she also said micro agencies are still fighting assumptions about what a ‘proper’ PR agency looks like.

“I often am asked, ‘Why don’t you have juniors working with you? Don’t you think you need it?’” she said. “I also lose work, or lose pitches for work, because people assume that to be good as an agency you have to have those multiple layers.”

White said micro agencies are well suited to some clients and briefs, but not all. Smaller brands and startups are often a better fit for micro agencies, he said.

“If you’re a much smaller brand and you don’t need a team on a daily basis to deliver outcomes for you, then a much smaller agency, whether it’s one person, two people or five people, may be able to do a great job.”

Artificial intelligence may also be changing the equation, with Kress saying AI can help micro agencies with tasks such as media monitoring, pitch reviews and idea generation. But White said human judgement remained essential: “I think a human in the loop is always necessary in this industry because you don’t want to be passing off AI slop as the finished product,” he said.

Big, medium or micro?
Nowak said clients choosing between a large, mid-sized or micro agency should focus less on size and more on capability, capacity and who will actually do the work.

“The questions that clients should ask are: ‘Do you have the capacity to service this? How many other clients are you or the team working on? Who is the team? Am I getting you?’ Rather than looking at an agency and deciding, ‘Is this size right for me?’, [the question should be], ‘Are the capabilities and capacity right for me?’”

For solo PR operators, the micro-agency label is less about pretending to be a large firm than making clear they are running a serious business with defined services, senior expertise and client relationships that go beyond casual freelance work.

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