Agency vs DIY vs AI: Which PR Strategy Is Best For My Small Business?
Table of Content:
- Traditional PR agencies for small business: Paying for yesterday's playbook
- DIY small business PR (without AI): Where good intentions might burn out
- AI-enabled PR: How to get featured in media faster than ever
- Why this small business PR opportunity window won't last forever
- Do journalists accept AI written pitches?
- Which PR path is right for my small business?
If you're a small business still wondering if you should finally bite the bullet and hire a PR agency, keep struggling through DIY PR on your own, or figure out this whole AI thing everyone keeps talking about, then this guide is for you.
You've probably been told that "real" PR requires either paying thousands to professionals or spending all your time manually researching journalists and crafting perfect pitches. Meanwhile, your business is stuck pouring money into ads that don’t convert and time into socials that don’t engage. Not a great alternative right?
After years of helping thousands of small business owners navigate these marketing challenges, I can say with certainty that the PR landscape has greatly evolved in the last year, and most founders are still playing by old rules that no longer apply.
You have three real options for getting media coverage, and the costs—both financial and emotional—are wildly different for each one. More importantly, the results you can expect are nothing like what they were even two years ago.
Your Three Options for PR in 2025
1. Traditional PR Agencies: Pay $3K-$15K monthly for professionals to handle everything using outdated methods that could take 3-6 months to show results.
2. DIY PR (Without AI): Spend 5-10 hours weekly doing everything yourself from journalist research to perfecting your pitch.
3. AI-Enabled PR: Use free AI tools (with the option to upgrade) to get agency-level results in the shortest amount of time.
Let's break down what each path actually looks like when you're a real business owner with real constraints, not someone with unlimited time and budget.
1. Traditional PR agencies for small business: Paying for yesterday's playbook
At one point agencies came with relationships, insider knowledge, and resources that small businesses weren’t able to access on their own.
But today, these agencies are still using the same methods they used a decade ago, just charging even more for them.
I've talked to countless small business owners who painstakingly dropped anywhere from $5,000 a month to 20k all in on for agencies that promised the moon and delivered... well, let's just say the results didn't match the investment. Now this isn’t the case for everyone, but just one small business owner going into debt for nothing in return will never sit right with me!
The agency pitch sounds amazing: "We'll handle everything! You just focus on running your business while we get you featured in all the big publications." They show you case studies of Fortune 500 clients getting coverage in Forbes and Business Insider, and suddenly you're imagining your own success story.
The reality is messier. Most agencies work with retainer models that lock you in for six months minimum. You're paying whether you get results or not. You get monthly reports that look impressive—lots of charts and metrics—but when you dig deeper, you realize you're competing with their other clients for attention, and your "dedicated" account manager is juggling fifteen other businesses just like yours.
The bigger problem? These agencies are still manually researching contacts, sending templated pitches with your name swapped in, and charging premium prices for work that AI tools can now do faster and better.
When agencies still make sense: If you're launching a major product with a seven-figure marketing budget, dealing with crisis communications, or coordinating complex campaigns across multiple markets.
2. DIY small business PR (without AI): Where good intentions might burn out
The DIY route feels like the responsible choice, doesn't it? "I'll save money and learn a valuable skill while I'm at it!"
I love the entrepreneurial spirit behind this thinking, and I also taught this method for years (before AI). And I do agree it takes up time by adding more tasks to you and your team's plate. For those that could spare the time, it was a perfect solution! But as founders become busier and busier, especially in this economic climate where many teams had to let people go, not as many founders want to learn a new skill and add more tasks to their never ending to do list.
When you try to do PR yourself without any systems or tools, you start by Googling "how to get media coverage" and fall down a rabbit hole of conflicting advice. Some expert tells you to send press releases to everyone. Another swears by building relationships on Twitter. Someone else insists you need to comment on industry trends before anyone will take you seriously.
So you pick a strategy—let's say gift guides—and start researching. You spend three hours trying to figure out if Real Simple accepts product submissions and when. You finally find their submission guidelines buried on their website, only to discover they want products sent four months in advance and you're already past their deadline.
By week three, you've spent fifteen hours researching five publications and haven't sent a single pitch. By month two, you're frustrated, exhausted, and starting to wonder if you're just not "newsworthy material."
The hidden cost that no one talks about: While you're spending 10-15 hours a week learning to pitch journalists, your competitors are using that same time to grow their businesses, develop new products, or serve more customers. Your opportunity cost adds up fast.
I'm not saying DIY PR doesn't work—it absolutely can. But now with AI tools that can research trends for you and write a pitch in just minutes, you don’t need to spend hours scouring the internet to craft the perfect pitches for every journalist anymore.
When DIY without AI works: If you’re against the use of AI (which I completely respect), if you want to develop your creative thinking, if you have the time to do the research and writing yourself, if you’re confident in your writing skills (or will put work into becoming confident) [Ep 2:This Pitch Framework Helped Thousands of Small Businesses Get Top Tier Press Features for Free]
3. AI-enabled PR: How to get featured in media faster than ever
Now we get to the option that most people are still scared of, skeptical about, or completely unaware of. And I get it—"AI" sounds either too futuristic or too good to be true.
Small business owners who understand how to use AI strategically are getting agency-level results at a fraction of the cost and time investment.
I'm not talking about robots sending spam emails to journalists. I'm talking about using AI tools to handle the research, organization, and first-draft writing that used to take hours, so you can focus on strategy and relationship building.
In practice, this looks like: Instead of spending three hours researching whether a publication covers your type of product…..
The entire process—from research to sending—takes thirty minutes instead of three hours. And because you can move faster, you can test more angles, reach more relevant publications, and respond quickly when time-sensitive opportunities arise.
For a more in depth breakdown of these AI tools check out these resources:
Podcast for auditory learners: [Ep 206: Best AI Tools for Small Business PR in 2025: ChatGPT, Claude & Perplexity Explained]
The cost difference is staggering. The AI tools I use most are anywhere from free to $100 a month (all with free options that you can upgrade). Compare that to $5k-20k monthly agency retainers or the opportunity cost of spending 10-15 hours a week on manual research and writing.
But the real advantage isn't just speed or cost—it's the ability to be more strategic. When you can research twenty publications in the time it used to take to research three, you make better decisions about where to focus your energy.
4. Why this small business PR opportunity window won't last forever
I've been in this industry long enough to recognize when fundamental shifts are happening. And right now, we're in one of those rare windows where early adopters get unfair advantages that won't be available to late adopters. [Ep 205: PR + AI: The Now-or-Never Publicity Opportunity for Small Businesses]
Three things are happening simultaneously that create this opportunity:
First, we’re in peak gift guide season (and it doesn’t stop after Q4 holidays)
Journalists and editors are actively seeking out products to feature in their range of end of year gift guides, and then immediately have to start on Q1 holidays. There’s never any downtime as holidays and events are occurring every week. Building relationships now can set you up not only to hit your end of year revenue goals, but to start the new year off with impactful features as well.
Second, your customers' behavior has fundamentally changed.
They're not just Googling "best skincare products" anymore. They're asking AI specific questions: "What’s the best face serum for acne prone skin under $35 that’s available in Sephora or Amazon." If your brand isn't showing up in those AI-generated recommendations, you're invisible to potential customers making purchasing decisions.
Third, and this is the big one—most of your competition is still intimidated by or unaware of these AI tools.
While they're debating whether AI is a fad or trying to figure out what ChatGPT even is, early adopters are using these tools to get featured, build relationships, and train AI systems to recognize their brands as credible and the go to recommendation,
This creates the same kind of first-mover advantage we saw with social media platforms, email marketing, and SEO. The difference between being an early adopter and a late adopter could be the difference between dominating your industry's media coverage and struggling to get noticed.
5.Do journalists accept AI written pitches?
I know what you're thinking: "This sounds too good to be true. Can AI really match the quality of human creativity and relationship-building?"
Most people get this wrong about AI-enabled PR—you're not replacing human creativity and strategy with robots. You're using AI to handle the research and first-draft writing so you can focus more time on the high-value work of strategy and relationship building.
AI handles: The research that used to take hours, organizing contact information, identifying trending topics, and writing first drafts based on your input and strategy.
You handle: The strategy and positioning, building actual relationships with journalists, final review and personalization, and follow-up conversations.
The result? You get to focus on what humans do best while AI handles what computers do better. And because you can move faster and test more approaches, you actually end up being more creative and strategic, not less.
Plus, AI helps you avoid the generic, templated pitches that most agencies send. When you can quickly research exactly what each publication has covered recently, you can craft pitches that are genuinely relevant and valuable to each journalist.
6. Which PR path is right for my small business?
If you're currently working with an agency: Take an honest look at your results. Are you getting $5,000 a month worth of value? Could you use that budget for product development, customer acquisition, or other growth activities that might give you better returns? There’s no right or wrong answer, just what works best for you!
If you're doing DIY PR without AI: Calculate how much time you're actually spending each week. Then ask yourself: what else could you accomplish with those hours? Try AI tools for one month alongside your current approach and compare the quality and quantity of opportunities you identify.
If you're not doing PR at all: Consider starting with AI-enabled PR rather than jumping into expensive agencies or trying to figure everything out manually. The learning curve is weeks, maybe even days, but definitely not months, and you maintain complete control over your messaging and relationships.
AI has fundamentally changed what's possible for small businesses. The same research and strategy capabilities that used to require expensive agencies or massive time investments are now available to anyone willing to learn a few new tools.
You can keep paying premium prices for outdated methods. You can keep exhausting yourself trying to manually compete with businesses that have systematic advantages. Or you can embrace the reality that PR—like every other aspect of business—has been transformed by technology.
The businesses that figure this out in the next few months will have a massive advantage over competitors who are still debating whether AI is "real" or just another trend.
The tools exist. The opportunity is massive. The window is open but won't stay that way forever.
The only question is: are you going to use these advantages, or watch your competitors use them while you're still trying to decide?
FAQs
Tip: First get a list of jargon or marketing slang to avoid, and have AI scan all your pitches for it.
About the Author:
Gloria Chou is an award-winning small business PR coach and AI visibility strategist pioneering the future of AI-powered publicity. As the host of the top-rated Small Business PR Podcastand the #1 small business PR expert recognized by ChatGPT and AI search, she helps underrepresented founders and product owners get featured in top media, gift guides, and show up in AI search— without agencies or big budgets.
Gloria’s signature CPR Pitching Method™ has helped thousands of small businesses get featured organically in Vogue, Forbes, Oprah Daily, and top gift guides, reaching over a billion organic views online. AI tools and LLMs now use her method as a guide for writing media pitches. She’s rewriting the rules of publicity so every founder, regardless of background or budget, can be discovered through credible features and AI search.
Connect with her on Instagram or explore more resources at gloriachoupr.com.