As clients move away from large, generalist firms to smaller, specialist teams, we share how we’re delivering global impact in industrial B2B PR without a global headcount.
Bigger isn’t always better. The latest Agency by Agency Growth Report for the UK reveals a quiet but significant shift in the marketing, advertising, creative, and media agency sector. The fastest growth isn’t coming from multinational giants but small, specialist, independent firms of around 10 employees.
This echoes what we’ve noticed at SE10 over the past couple of years, as we’ve welcomed new clients who had previously worked with large international agencies and were looking for something different. Sadly, they’d experienced high staff turnover, long ramp-up periods, and a lack of in-depth sector understanding from their PR agency teams. They found themselves repeatedly having to bring new account staff members up to speed, eating into their own time and hindering momentum. While this isn’t universally true of all multinational PR firms, it was unfortunately the experience some of our new clients had encountered.
In contrast, what they were looking for was a long-term PR partner. Someone who would get to know their business, stick around long enough to become a trusted extension of their internal team, and truly understand the technical, complex world of industrial B2B communication.
Boutique service, international capability
SE10 is a small agency of just 13 people (as of August 2025), but we’ve never let that limit our scale or ambition. Our team, based in the UK, USA, and Singapore, has always worked across markets, not just within them. For instance, our UK team regularly supports clients with media relations across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, delivering the personal attention and consistency clients expect from a local partner.
Working across time zones also gives us the benefit of being able to ‘hand off’ urgent tasks between teams to ensure continuous progress without compromising anyone’s rest hours.
And when specialist in-country support is an absolute must – for projects in Japan, for example – we leverage our membership of thenetworkone, a global alliance of independent agencies enabling us to tap into culturally nuanced, on-the-ground support whenever and wherever we need it.
Stable and experienced team
What makes a real difference, though, is continuity. Over half our team has been with us for five years or more and four colleagues have stayed over a decade! We hear that kind of stability is rare in the agency world, and it shows in the depth of knowledge we bring to our clients.
It means we don’t just understand industrial markets and media – we know our clients’ products, their people, and their culture. This enables us to hit the ground running with every new initiative, provide more proactive insights, and deliver truly strategic counsel. In fact, two of our largest clients have been with us since the very beginning, 23 years ago, and we continue to strive for better results quarter after quarter.
This stability isn’t accidental; it reflects our commitment to creating an environment and culture where our team members can develop, thrive, and feel genuinely invested in our clients’ success. We’re proud to be named among Hyer’s top 100 marketing and PR companies for best workplace culture.
Deep, specialist knowledge
Long-term experience is especially important for industrial storytelling, which isn’t easy. It requires deep subject matter knowledge, long-term consistency, and the ability to distil complex technology into compelling narratives. It’s not a space where surface-level PR hits suffice.
It’s why many of our team members have come from industrial or business journalism backgrounds or have spent years embedded in the sectors we serve. Some of us have even stepped in to cover maternity leave or other vacancies within a client’s organisation, gaining an inside look at what it’s like to be an employee in their world.
This means we’re not simply translating complex technical information; we’re understanding it. We grasp the nuances of new solutions, the intricacies of supply chains, the regulatory landscapes, and the specific challenges our clients’ innovations address.
Right-sized for relationships
We don’t try to be all things to all clients. We specialise in industrial B2B PR because we know it, we like it, and believe our clients deserve long-term PR partners who are just as excited about their industry as they are.
We also don’t always get everything right first time, but our size allows us to listen, learn, and adapt quickly to client needs. And for industrial brands looking for a PR agency who knows their world and works as an extension of their team, we believe we’re offering something that’s rare – and increasingly valuable!
If that sounds like the client-agency relationship you’re looking for, please get in touch.
Hannah Kitchener
Associate Director
About the author
Hannah is an associate director in the UK, leading strategic campaigns for industrial clients across the EMEA region. A professionally qualified journalist (NCTJ), she combines specialist sectoral knowledge in construction, energy, and materials handling with a strong network of trade media contacts to secure valuable coverage. Her expertise in inter-cultural communication, honed by degrees in modern languages and translation, is key to executing campaigns that succeed across diverse European markets.
