"Marketing... PR Strategy for a Slowing Economy.

Despite the economic slowdown and dot-com layoffs, many tech companies are remaining in business, doing their best within a tight labor market. Because they have been reluctant to cut highly sought technical personnel, their public relations and marketing departments are often the first to be downsized, often to the point of counter-productivity.

Some tech companies cutting back on marketing communications (marcom) in-house have begun looking outside their organizations for cost-effective public relations and other marcom services. They often discover that traditional tech PR agencies provide more services than necessary or require retainers in excess of $20,000 per month, which is frequently beyond their budgets, especially when a company is simply looking to beef up its own efforts.

As they curb spending or downsize, economically-astute companies will outsource marcom to providers who can pick up the slack and provide services on a smaller, flexible scale, often on a project-