By Brittany Frey, Hays Frey PR & Christoph Hausel, ELEMENT C
In 2024, the CEO of an enterprise tech company installed a new head of sales in the DACH region. The market was brand new to the company. There was no local team, no established media relationships, no go-to-market PR playbook. The mandate was simple on paper but hard to execute: introduce the new executive and the company to a region neither had operated in before.
This is the moment most agencies either lose the work or get it wrong.
Brittany: As the agency of record, we knew our limits. We didn’t have DACH market expertise, German-language fluency, or relationships with the right journalists to reach that region. We could have tried to build that infrastructure from scratch, or we could have stayed in our lane and watched the client find someone else to handle it. Neither option would have served the client. So we brought in a partner agency: ELEMENT C.
Christoph’s team didn’t just translate materials. They built a local editorial strategy from scratch, identifying which topics would resonate with German-speaking media and how to position the client within those conversations. We stayed close to the client throughout, but the in-market thinking was ELEMENT C’s to own.
Christoph: This is where the real work of cross-border PR happens, and it is often misunderstood. A direct translation of a US press release rarely works in German-speaking markets. The communication culture is different: where US PR tends toward enthusiasm and bold claims, DACH media expects restraint, precision, and understatement. The same message needs to travel a completely different road to land with the same impact.
What made this work was not just localisation, but a proactive editorial approach. We did not wait for the client to hand us news. We looked at what topics were relevant in the market, identified where the client could credibly contribute, and pitched angles and bylines accordingly. That approach delivered one to two placements per month, without a single product announcement to anchor them.
The other thing that made it work was a constant dialogue with Brittany’s team. We shared what was gaining traction in Germany, they shared what was working in the US, and together we found the overlap. That kind of regular exchange is what turns a subcontracting arrangement into something that actually feels like a team.
Why this works
For the agency of record, partnering means saying yes to a new region instead of we don’t do that, without the cost or risk of hiring full-time staff to build expertise you may only need once. You keep the client relationship and the strategic ownership. You just extend your bench.
There is an administrative benefit too. Hays Frey PR managed all of the admin work behind the partnership, so the client never had to onboard a new vendor, never received two invoices in two currencies from two unrelated firms. For a client already navigating a new region, that simplicity has real value.
For the partner agency, it means new work and new relationships without competing in an open pitch process. You walk in with a referral, not a cold call, and a single project well executed often becomes the start of something longer.
Making it work in practice
The partnerships that succeed tend to share a few habits. First, mutual trust. Brittany’s team trusted us to make editorial calls they could not make themselves, and we trusted them to manage the client relationship without pulling us into every conversation. That trust has to be established early and maintained deliberately.
Second, clear rules from the start. Who speaks to the client, about what, and when? How are hours tracked and billed? What are the KPIs and who is accountable for which ones? These are not bureaucratic questions. They are the difference between a collaboration that runs smoothly and one that creates friction precisely when the client is watching most closely.
Third, treat localisation as strategy, not administration. If your partner agency is simply translating your materials, you are not getting the value the market requires. The editorial instinct, the cultural read, the journalist relationships: that is what you are actually paying for.
The bigger picture
Companies are expanding into new markets faster than most agencies can build the expertise to follow them. That gap is a risk if you say no to the client, and an opportunity if you bring in the right partner instead.
This is precisely the kind of connection PRBI exists to make. If your agency has a client entering a market you don’t know, or is well-versed in a market other agencies’ clients haven’t discovered yet, the network and the next opportunity are closer than you think.