Why treating PR as a risk is the smartest move your in‑house team can make

If your in-house marketing team is also responsible for PR, chances are PR often gets treated like an add-on to marketing activity. A press release here. A product announcement there. Something vaguely news-shaped, sent out with fingers crossed.

And that’s the problem.

Too many businesses use PR as a substitute for advertising. They want coverage to talk at their audiences about the latest thing they’ve done, in the hope it will drive awareness, enquiries and sales. Journalists, however, spot this instantly and they reject it just as quickly. Bang go your chances of getting into their publications… potentially forever.

are you a risk taker? You need to be

The organisations that secure consistent media coverage do something very different: they treat PR as a risk.

That might sound counterintuitive. After all, marketers are trained to control the message and minimise exposure. But PR doesn’t reward safety. Rather, it rewards interest and interest only comes from saying something that not everyone else is prepared to say.

Taking a ‘PR as risk’ mindset forces your team to ask better questions. Is this viewpoint genuinely different from what the market already believes? Does this data reveal something unexpected? Are we prepared for scrutiny if we put this story into the public domain – will it hold up?

Businesses that stand out are brave enough to publish insight that challenges assumptions. They invest in research that reveals new angles on familiar issues - especially when the findings cut against accepted wisdom. And when they announce a product or service launch, they back up ‘game-changing’ claims with credible, independently sourced data.

This is where many in-house teams struggle. Without a deep understanding of how newsrooms work, it’s tempting to play it safe - to issue announcements that feel polished and safe but ultimately say absolutely nothing new. Unfortunately for these businesses, mediocrity is invisible to journalists because if they find the story bland so will the audiences whom they act as gatekeepers for.

give, don’t take

PR works when you give reporters something they can use: a strong opinion, a surprising fact, or a lens on an issue their audiences already care about. That requires confidence, preparation and a willingness to let go of marketing comfort blankets and put your head above the parapet.

The irony is that treating PR as a calculated risk actually reduces long-term risk. You stop wasting time on releases that go nowhere. You build credibility with journalists. And you position your business as a source of insight, trust, and credibility rather than noise.

If your in-house team wants consistent coverage, stop asking, “How do we promote this?” Start asking, “What would make this genuinely interesting?”

Because in PR, ‘nice’ doesn’t get coverage. ‘Wow’ does.

You don’t need a PR agency to get media coverage for your business – you can become more than capable of doing it yourself and securing great PR results with the right guidance and support. Take a look at our PR Training & Coaching service for more information.