Public Relations Benchmarking

Q: Are there industry standards or benchmarks for what percentage of various PR activities should be allocated for a project? These activities would include: research; planning; creativity; media placement; design; production; etc.

Also are there benchmarks for the amount of man-hours that should be or are usually devoted to each of these activities?

Lillian

A: Dear Lillian:

Based on benchmarking studies I’ve done for specific clients, these numbers, for both staffing and budgeting, vary extremely widely. If you take a look at the Q&A that follows yours, I describe some of the factors that lead to the variations and some places to look for publicly available benchmarks.

Good luck,

Angela D. Sinickas