Word gets around. Contrary to what many might expect, Google, LinkedIn and the trade media aren’t the top resources industry leaders rely on when searching for their next communications agency of record.

In fact, according to a recent survey of agency hiring practices, more than three quarters — 76 percent — of companies said they actually find PR and communications agencies through word-of-mouth recommendations from industry peers.

Only about 20 percent of companies said they use Google or LinkedIn to find communications partner agencies, and only about 10 percent said they rely on trade media, associations, industry meetings or RFPs, according to the survey, which was conducted by communications services resource CommunicationsMatch in conjunction with industry news site CommPRO.biz. 

CommunicationsMatch Graph

The report, titled “PR & Communications Agency Search Report 2017,” asked corporate communicators how they seek and discover partner agencies. It found that PR ranks highly when it comes to the communications disciplines companies consider important for their business success. More than nine out of 10 (94 percent) cited PR as very or somewhat important to their strategy, followed by digital marketing (93 percent) and social media (92 percent).

Traditional marketing, by contrast, was seen as important by eight out of 10 respondents (82 percent). Ranking lowest were digital advertising (58 percent) and traditional advertising (43 percent).

The survey also found that nearly four in 10 respondents — or 37 percent — said they were planning on contacting new agencies this year. The primary reason most — two-thirds — said they were doing so, according to the survey, was to find an agency that can provide specialized capabilities in a particular area. The skill sets industry leaders appear to be looking for primarily involve digital, such as social media, content creation, SEO and video. 

Creativity was cited as the single most important quality a communications agency can have, followed by multi-disciplinary communications capabilities, reputation and specialized expertise. However, most companies — around two-thirds of respondents — said finding an agency isn’t easy, with a third of respondents — 33 percent — claiming that it’s either somewhat difficult or very difficult to find a partner communications agency.

The survey also found that two-thirds of respondents cited budgets as being flat this year compared to 2016.

The CommunicationsMatch survey polled nearly 100 corporate communications, marketing and industry influencers online between December 2016 and January 2017.