The benefits of a comms agency: What can Orchard do for me?

In this blog, Head of PR Dan Gallienne examines the benefits of a comms agency, demonstrating their versatility and usefulness for businesses of all shapes and sizes by using Orchard as a case study.

“Well yeah obviously the roads, the roads go without saying don’t they?” so says John Cleese’s Reg in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, having received a more thorough response than he’d anticipated to the question 'what have the Romans ever done for us?'

A chat with a prospective client a couple of weeks ago got me thinking about what the benefits of a comms agency are. What are those key benefits that those of us in the industry think are so obvious that they ‘go without saying’?

During that chat, the prospect asked us what we could offer his organisation, considering he already had a marketing and comms team – a fair question, and not the first time I’d been asked it.

The response in this instance was twofold: extra resource to support your team, and ideas from outside your organisation. But that’s just two functions an agency can perform, what are the other benefits of a comms agency? Here are some of the ways we work with our clients:

1. Taking on surplus work – sometimes, and especially in the current recruitment climate in the Crown Dependencies, an organisation just needs a bit of extra resource to support their communications work. Whether that’s helping to execute a specific campaign in the short term, or covering leave or a staffing gap in the longer term, we can help.

2. Strategic advice – we work with both communications and executive-level teams to help organisations with their communications strategies. Some clients lean on the range of expertise across Orchard’s branches, using our diversity of expertise to unlock the full potential of communications activities. Crucially, the best communications strategies tie into an organisation’s overall plan and objectives; helping you to fulfil your goals.

3. An external view – one of the greatest benefits of working with a comms agency that many of our clients value, is gaining an informed, external viewpoint. Our immersion in life in the Crown Dependencies and the local media means that our team is able to quickly gain an understanding of an organisation, its standing, and the context in which its operating, while taking an objective viewpoint. We “hold up a mirror” for our clients and aren’t afraid of asking them the hard questions, which has led to some of our most impactful communications work.

4. Specific outsourcing – some clients use Orchard for a specific function that they don’t have in-house expertise on, or in-house resources to fulfil. This includes everything from copywriting to social media content planning, video production to media training. We have ongoing relationships with clients to perform these tasks, and work with others on a one-off basis.

These are just some of the ways that we work with clients; the constant across all of these is that we work to affect change through communications activity. We believe in communications as a force for good, whether that’s a single piece of activity or a full campaign.

The benefits of a comms agency are vast and entirely bespoke. So, the answer to the question ‘what can a communications agency do for me?’ might be a bit broader than you first thought, but certainly doesn’t go without saying.