A recent survey among 200 major ICT companies in The Netherlands, held by Research & intelligence agency Annalise SVP and commissioned by Hill & Knowlton Netherlands in Amsterdam, learned that 75% of the companies uses an external PR agency for their PR work. Crucial in the relationship between ICT companies and PR agencies is knowledge of the market, contacts with the ICT trade media and journalists, a good pro-active cooperation and a good ‘chemistry' between the external consultant and the contact person of the company.

Public Relations

In most cases the marketing manager is responsible for Public Relations. The activities involved are: contributions to mutual understanding between the company and clients, suppliers, distributors, employees and policymakers on several levels. Credibility is the central theme and Public relations focuses on media coverage.

PR more involved

The survey also showed that ICT firms will do more PR work in the future. All ICT companies see advertising and PR  as the marketing tools. As a result of the recession in the ICT sector, advertising budgets have been reduced during the past years, but PR-budgets have remained stable. Two third of the ICT companies expect to continue with advertising on current level and more than half expect to do more on PR.

When PR is compared to other marketing instruments, most ICT companies see PR as an adequate instrument to create credibility and increase brand awareness. For generation leads or stimulating sales other marketing tools fit better.

In-house PR

25% of the ICT companies have in house PR. Contracting PR is popular at big companies (more than 100 employees) and at small ICT companies (less than 20 employees). The most important reason for not contracting PR is experiences with agencies that do not have market knowledge and no capable copywriters.

PR agencies in The Netherlands

In The Netherlands we have more than 2.000 companies registered at the Chamber of Commerce as Public Relations agency; the majority is a one-man operation. 50 PR firms have between 10 and 20 staff and 22 have more than 20 staff. 70% is located in the west of the country (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague). There are more than 20 in ICT specialised PR- agencies or agencies with a  specialised technology practice.

The agency challenge

The positive attitude in the ICT market towards contracting PR work to agencies creates a challenge for PR agencies. A repetition of what happened in the period 1998 - 2002 should be avoided. That requires a critical attitude towards clients requests. Agencies should assist clients in getting their act together and provide journalists with the information they need for their readers/viewers/listeners.

This survey shows that clients realise that credibility is key. Hopefully that will prove to be the best learning from the internet bubble burst.