Getting senior leadership buy-in isn’t always straightforward for marketing and communications teams. Whether it’s signing off the latest campaign idea, agreeing on the opening line of a press release, securing the budget to expand an internal team or getting approval to bring in external agency support, these decisions can be difficult to get over the line. The latter, in particular, has brought many agency hiring processes to a standstill.
In this piece, we share practical tools and ideas to help you ‘persuade’ the C-suite to see the value of external PR and get them on board.
Some background
Additional PR support can help businesses build visibility, strengthen their reputation in the media and raise the profile of their leadership team - all common goals for B2B brands. While hiring an internal communications role could help achieve some of this, bringing in an agency offers further benefits, including flexibility, focus and the ability to maximise budget - more team for your £/$/€.
PR is harder to quantify than other areas of marketing. It’s relatively straightforward to measure clicks, leads or conversions from a paid campaign, but the value of credibility, visibility and a strong media presence isn't always as easy to put into numbers.
This can make PR feel like a nice-to-have rather than a strategic investment. The key is to make the business case and show how PR can support wider business goals - something we try to help our clients with on a regular basis.
So, how can you demonstrate the value of PR to the C-suite and make the case for investing in external PR support?
Start with the business problem - and why now
Start by asking: what is the business trying to achieve, and how can PR help you get there?
What goal does the wider marketing team need to address, and which parts of that can PR support? Is it about increasing brand awareness, improving product understanding or adapting your market position? Perhaps you’re launching a new product or entering a new market and need media attention to help it land. Above all, what does your company stand for, and what do you need to be known for?
Then, look at what’s happening around you. What are competitors talking about? Which issues are getting attention? What are journalists covering? Where are there opportunities for your business to add something useful to the story? And increasingly, how visible is your business in AI search and in the answers to questions your customers are asking?
Once you understand the business priority and the opportunity, you can show where PR fits. If the goal is to build credibility in a new market, for example, the conversation becomes about reaching the right audiences, building trust and establishing the business as a credible voice.
It also helps to frame the conversation around what matters to the people you’re trying to influence. A CEO may care about growth or market position, while a CFO may want to understand the commercial case and how success will be measured. Building stronger relationships with the C-suite can make these conversations easier, too. This is something we explore in more detail in our guide to strengthening C-suite relationships.
That’s what turns PR from something the marketing team wants to do into something the business needs to achieve its wider goals.
Don't sell coverage. Sell the business impact
C-suite buy-in is easier to secure when PR is linked to business priorities, rather than measured simply by the number of articles published.
The conversation shouldn't start with how much coverage a programme can generate. It should start with what the business needs to achieve - and how PR can help.
Does the business need to build credibility in a new market? Differentiate itself from competitors? Strengthen its reputation? Give sales teams more confidence in conversations with prospective customers?
PR can help by:
Building trust and credibility with the audiences that matter most
Supporting entry into new markets or the launch of a new product or proposition
Establishing senior leaders as credible voices on the issues shaping their industry
Giving sales teams independent third-party validation to support customer conversations
Building a stronger reputation and a more distinctive market position over time
Of course, none of this happens through coverage alone. The strongest PR programmes give people a compelling reason to pay attention - whether that's original research, genuine market expertise, a distinctive point of view or a fresh perspective on an issue that matters to their audience.
For marketers seeking C-suite support, the challenge is to connect those activities to meaningful business outcomes, define what success looks like and demonstrate progress against it.
“PR is most valuable when it supports what a clients business is trying to achieve. Good coverage isn’t about volume or vanity metrics; it’s about reaching the right audience with the right message. Done well, it can build brand awareness, strengthen credibility and support business development, from attracting new customers to deepening relationships with existing ones. The key is demonstrating that value in the language of the c-suite. By using RG quality scores (which reflect audience and message), more transparent metrics and increasingly, GEO measurement, we can give senior marketing and PR leaders the evidence they need to show the C-suite how PR contributes to business objectives.”
Jonathan Williams - Managing Director at Rosely Group
Give the C-suite confidence that PR won't become a drain on their time
Getting senior leadership to approve PR isn't just about showing them why it matters. They also need confidence that the investment will be well managed and won't create another demand on their time.
How involved will I need to be? How much time will this take? Will I be expected to constantly create content or speak to journalists?
Being clear about what's involved from the outset can help reassure them. For example, setting expectations around a one-hour monthly briefing and prompt sign-off on quotes or comments shows that PR can be managed efficiently without taking up too much of their time or disrupting other priorities.
A good PR programme should make this simple. The agency or communications team can identify the right opportunities, prepare spokespeople, manage journalists and handle deadlines.
Senior leaders should provide the expertise and insight, without having to manage the process around it.
The aim is to make senior expertise easy to use, while giving the C-suite confidence that the investment is being used effectively.
Show them what you know that they don't
One common question from the C-suite is: “We already have a marketing and communications team, so why do we need an agency as well?”
The answer isn't that your internal team can't do PR. Your internal team knows the business best, but an agency should bring a different perspective.
That means keeping an eye on the market, understanding what journalists care about, spotting where competitors are gaining visibility and identifying the moments when your business can add something valuable to the conversation.
A good PR agency shouldn't just take a press release and send it to a media list. It should help shape what you say, why it matters and where the opportunity lies, combining media knowledge, market intelligence and creative thinking with an understanding of the business's priorities.
The best agencies are constantly looking for the right moments, monitoring news, trends and conversations, then turning those insights into relevant stories and opportunities.
The value isn't in replacing the internal team. It's in adding external expertise, perspective and capacity that strengthens what the team is already doing.
“The best inhouse leadership teams I’ve worked with don’t need an agency to tell them about their business. What they value is someone standing slightly outside it, who can see what a journalist will find interesting or engaging, where a competitor is quietly taking the conversation away from them - or even which of their experts is sitting on a story nobody’s told yet. That outside view is hard to replicate when you’re deep in the weeds of the company.
It's also crucial to remember business leaders want outcomes, not action - they're not necessarily interested in how hard you and your agency worked, or even the fact media coverage appeared - what they want to understand is the positive impact of PR work on the business, in terms of its reputation and standing with the stakeholders that matter to it.”
Con Franklin - Director & Senior Client Advisor at Rosely Group
Give the C-suite something concrete to say yes to
A good agency should be able to show what the first few months could look like, with clear objectives, activity and measures of success.
Month 1: Build the foundations - identify stories, spokespeople and opportunities.
Month 2: Increase visibility - develop and launch stories, commentary and media relationships.
Month 3: Sustain momentum - review what’s working and focus on the strongest opportunities.
A clear plan makes PR feel like a strategic investment, rather than an open-ended commitment, while giving the C-suite confidence that the agency has a clear approach from day one.
Make the investment easy to evaluate
The C-suite will want to know whether PR is working, so agree what success looks like from the start and tie it back to the original business objective.
Rather than focusing on the number of pieces of coverage, look at measures such as:
Quality and relevance of coverage
Reach among priority audiences
Share of voice
Executive profile
Website or referral activity
Opportunities generated
The right measures will depend on your objectives, but the principle is simple: agree outcomes, not just activity.
The role of the agency: key takeaways
A strong internal marketing or communications team doesn't mean you don't need external support. The right agency should complement your team, not replace it.
Look for an agency that brings:
External perspective - seeing opportunities and stories you might miss.
Media expertise and relationships - knowing what will cut through and who to speak to.
Additional capacity - supporting activity without adding another permanent hire.
Challenge and fresh thinking - questioning assumptions and helping sharpen the story.
Speed and responsiveness - being ready to act when opportunities arise.
The combination of deep internal knowledge and external PR expertise can be more powerful than either working alone.
PR should make the C-suite conversation easier
Getting buy-in for PR isn't about proving that media coverage matters. It's about showing how PR can help solve a business problem.
When PR is linked to business priorities, backed by insight and measured against meaningful outcomes, the case becomes much easier to make.
Need help making the case for PR?
The question is never whether PR is worth it - it’s whether you can show what it will change for the business. For a complimentary storytelling audit or 30 minute session on building your business case for PR, contact us.