Chicago Public Relations Agency
Looking for a Chicago PR agency? Headquartered in downtown Chicago and with offices in Chicago and San Francisco, Walker Sands is a full-service public relations agency specializing in B2B tech.
Our Chicago Public Relations Roots
Walker Sands was founded in Chicago after the dot-com market crash in 2002 by Chicago tech entrepreneurs who had learned from firsthand experience that no matter how good a company’s offering is, the company will not succeed unless it excels at marketing.
For companies large and small, we determined that public relations is by far the most cost-effective marketing tactic, and, while we cover all aspects of marketing and have deep talents in a variety of tactical niches, our deepest strength is in public relations.
Simply put, visibility in the media is the fastest path to what you want, whether that’s building brand awareness, getting new customers, accelerating your sales cycle, tapping into a new market or attracting interest from potential investors and acquirers.
Having fine-tuned a system for getting great marketing results in our Chicago-based startups, we setup a small office in the Chicago West Loop, at the corner of Lake Street and Desplaines Street, and applied the same principles we had perfected in our startups to help our clients grow rapidly and achieve the success and acclaim they deserved.
Expanding Our Chicago Public Relations Agency
Initially, we worked our Chicago connections to get clients, meeting with Chicago VC firms and Chicago tech entrepreneurs we knew. Our first clients were small tech companies based in Chicago, including RapidApp, Novarra and SurePayroll. We helped these three companies to grow rapidly, resulting in all three being acquired by larger firms.
Word spread. Our talents and our relentless focus on playing for high score drew the attention of large national customers, like Microsoft and Cisco, who hired us to help them, and our Chicago public relations agency was quickly in high demand from ambitious companies and executives based in countries around the world.
From our humble origins as a startup Chicago public relations agency in a small loft office in Chicago’s West Loop, we’ve since expanded offices three times, twice to larger spaces in the West Loop and, most recently, to our current address at 55 West Monroe Street, Suite 3925, Chicago, IL 60603, in the heart of the Chicago Loop. We’ve also expanded nationally, opening an office in San Francisco to better serve our many clients in Silicon Valley.
Evidently, we are doing something right. Based on our rapid growth, our Chicago PR agency made the Inc 5000 list three years in a row — and our great work has earned us countless marketing and PR awards. But our greatest reward has been seeing our clients succeed. We help their organizations to grow, and on a personal level, we take pride in watching our client contacts get promoted and rise up in their organizations and build stature in their niche industries.
Experience the Difference
You may have noticed that we were founded by entrepreneurs, not by public relations agency veterans. To be sure, there are other top Chicago PR firms, most of them founded by alumni from Burson-Marsteller, Edelman, Fleishmann and other large public relations agencies. But, make no mistake, Walker Sands is different. As outsiders, rather than PR industry insiders, we brought fresh thinking to the discipline of public relations. We’ve knocked down more than a few sacred cows, and we’ve designed our agency from the ground up to serve folks like you.
There’s more to our unique approach than can be explained here. As much as we love and adore them, words can’t tell the full story. It requires a conversation. So get in touch. Contact us to get things started.