What is Tech PR? How to Choose a Tech PR Agency

What is Tech PR?

Technology Public Relations (Tech PR) is the process cultivating, maintaining, and enhancing the reputation of your technology brand, business, or service. This involves crafting compelling narratives, generating positive media coverage, and positioning your brand as a thought leader and innovator within the tech industry.

At its core, Tech PR ensures that your brand’s voice resonates with your target audience, whether that’s customers, investors, partners, or the wider public.

A strong Tech PR strategy goes beyond simply promoting products or services; it involves identifying the most impactful business initiatives—such as technological breakthroughs, market insights, or customer success stories—and aligning these with your overarching commercial goals.

Through storytelling, thought leadership, and targeted media relations, Tech PR professionals help translate complex technical concepts into clear, engaging messages that appeal to both industry insiders and broader audiences.

Hunting down the most impactful business initiatives, then aligning them to your commercial strategy is time-consuming for companies, but are responsibilities that a seasoned tech PR agency will embrace.

1. What is a Tech PR Agency?

A tech PR agency is a company that specialises in proactively managing the reputation of technology-based brands, by developing strategic communication plans, delivering impactful PR campaigns, managing crisis communications and more. An agency will consist of a team of communication and PR specialists, and, as in the case of EC-PR, may also have collective experience working in tech companies.

2. What does a Tech PR Agency do?

A Tech PR agency specialises in building and managing the reputation of technology-focused brands. They create content, secure media coverage, and elevate clients to industry leaders. By leveraging storytelling, media relationships, and strategic campaigns, they help tech companies gain visibility, build credibility, and drive business growth.

3. What skills should you look for in a Tech PR Agency?

Tech PR agencies should possess skills in building and maintaining long-lasting relationships with tech journalists. This will involve turning somewhat dry and highly technical topics into interesting and engaging editorial pieces such as blogs and thought leadership content, as well as creating and socialising press releases that maximise media opportunities.

People who work within tech PR agencies must genuinely have a passion for technology as well as an ability to bring high-level knowledge down to a less specialised readership. They must have a desire to expand their knowledge, think on their feet, and pick up new concepts quickly.

Tech PR agencies may also specialise. Here at EC-PR we work with B2B businesses – those who sell their tech services and products to other businesses, rather than the general public. A B2B Tech PR Agency will nurture relations with a different group of contacts, publications, websites and partners, compared to a B2C Tech PR agency. Similarly you may find agencies which have sub-sector specialisms, such as security and defence, or healthcare tech.

4. What services will a Tech PR Agency offer?

When you look for a new tech PR agency, choose one that can provide a comprehensive toolkit of brand reputation management, with proven experience in the sector.

11 Media Relations

Building media relations with tech journalists and influencers, securing coverage in tech-focused publications, blogs, and media outlets, and writing and distributing press releases are key activities.

22Content creation

Crafting articles, blog posts, white papers and case studies is a must and should all be written by your tech PR agency, with input from your in-house experts. Your agency can also take the lead in producing multimedia content, such as videos, infographics, and podcasts.

33Crisis Management

A team of PR professionals can help you develop a comprehensive crisis communications plan to ensure that you’re prepared for any eventuality.

4Thought leadership

Your chosen agency should have a successful track record of generating. strategically-aligned ideas for articles, campaigns and thought leadership while positioning executives as industry leaders through interviews, opinion pieces, and keynote speaking opportunities.

5Event support and publicity

Planning and promoting attendance at both in-person and virtual events including trade shows, tech conferences, roundtables and webinars.

66Measurement and reporting

Precise PR measurement data enables you to refine strategies for better outcomes, demonstrate the value of PR efforts, optimise high-ROI activities, and ensure alignment with broader business objectives, maximizing the impact of your resources and campaigns.

7Analyst Relations

Building and maintaining relationships with industry analysts through analyst relations is a powerful tool to boost credibility and stand out in a crowded market.

8Media training

High-quality bespoke media training for senior level executives, equipping them to communicate effectively during interviews. It ensures they deliver key messages with confidence and clarity while preparing them to handle challenging questions and perform under pressure.

4. Why should I use a specialist Tech PR Agency?

A specialist tech PR agency is right for you if you are looking to proactively manage your brand reputation, rather than leaving it to chance. It’s right for you if you are seeking significant long-term growth, scale-up investment, and heightened profile and brand awareness. PR agencies with a special interest in technology companies have a genuine passion for the subject, rather than a desire to hop on one of the most talked-about topics in the world.

5. How to find the best UK Tech PR Agency?

You don’t need the top UK PR agency as defined by some third party – you need the best PR agency for your requirement.

This is why we recommend asking those you know for suggestions. A referral from people you trust is still the most effective way of securing a credible tech PR partner. Alternatively, reviewing case studies and client testimonials from the agency’s past work can provide valuable insights into their capabilities and the results they can deliver.

Objectively, the perfect UK tech PR agency for you is one who offers the results, timeline, and relationship quality you need, at this stage in your business.

When vetting tech PR agencies, we recommend using an RFP template. We made one for you at Selector: The Questions You Need to Ask Your PR Agency.

Start your search for a PR partner here:

1. Go to LinkedIn to find possible partners, and read their most recent updates – are they interesting, engaging, and persuasive?
2. Look at articles and blogs posted by the PR agency – do they inspire you?
3. Review case studies, speak to past and present technology clients.
4. Ask any PR agency that you’re vetting, these questions:
   • What’s your track record?
   • How do you measure success?
   • What campaigns have you managed for companies in our industry?
   • What do journalists know about you?
   • What’s your management plan for a crisis or negative press?
   • How will you integrate with our existing growth initiatives?
   • How do you stay on top of industry trends?
   • Who’s going to be our point of contact?
   • Where do we fall in your client roster?
   • What do you need to know about my business?
   • How often will we hear from you?
   • How deep do my pockets need to be?
   • Who can vouch for you?

6. How much does it cost to hire a PR agency?

How much it will cost to hire a PR agency depends on what you are trying to achieve. Read our latest article to help budget for 2024 PR costs here.

Focusing on specific business objectives allows tech PR agencies to design bespoke campaigns, built for purpose. Whether you are looking for a Mini Cooper or a Rolls Royce, outline what good looks like for you, and insist your PR team works in tandem with you to achieve that. This is what will dictate costs.

A specialist tech PR agency can provide a deliverables-based proposal to manage expectations and let you know what will be needed from your internal team too. Aspirations are a good thing when tempered with realism and matched with a well thought-out plan.

7. Can a PR agency guarantee results?

Guaranteeing results of PR activity is a bone of contention for many. However, it is possible through Service Level Agreements, SMART KPIs and complete transparency in the specific deliverables of a PR campaign.

Ask your tech PR agency to show you a proven process and combine that with a performance guarantee of some kind, to introduce some certainty to your relationship.

8. How do you evaluate a Tech PR Agency?

As is true with any provider, you will measure the success of a PR agency against agreed objectives. Depending on the type of campaign you launched, these might include:

• Outputs or deliverables
• Performance metrics against your key competitors
• Volume of “on- message” cuttings
• Message pull through
• Share of voice
• Web traffic
• Links generated
• Qualified leads.

Critically, objectives must be realistic, agreed and set at the start of activity. Seasoned tech PR agencies will not promise you the moon but deliver a mound, and they will be as keen to define the output as you are. They know what is truly possible and within what timeframe because they supplement their experience with first-rate data collection and technology.