I consider myself to be pretty lucky when it comes to experience. I started my career as a Public Relations (PR) professional and after ten years evolved into (digital) Marcoms and eventually Marketing. I am, as a result a true believer in effective 360 degree marketing and the immense power of going digital.
What's interesting is that I still see PR being underutilized in digital marketing strategies - and that's surprising. Experience tells me that many marketers shy away from PR as being "too complicated" and will as a result ignore it over the more "controllable" channels (i.e. owned channels). And I think that's a mistake.
So lets go into why I think you are missing out.
What is Digital PR?
For those of you new to the game, PR (in general) is a specialization that seeks to gain attention for organizations through influential third party endorsement. For 90% of the time PR people will focus on press with a view to getting their news published on primarily digital news channels these days.
The aim of the online press coverage is to boost a brand’s reputation, drive product and services interest, improve trust, credibility and digital presence. And it can deliver quite some impact with recent data showing that nearly 75% of all EU citizens and 93% of people in the US primarily read their news online. But there's more to it than just gaining presence.
Digital PR is effectively the next level in driving engagement and has moved away from "just" delivering stories in the press to a must have element of your overall digital strategy. It's a highly effective promotional tactic that is used more by marketers, delivering measurable and tangible strategy to driving brand awareness, traffic to a website, links which boost organic rankings, nurturing leads, social following and engagement.
Surprised? Then read on.
Digital PR improves your SEO
It's actually quite simple. If your PR strategy and execution are working, then you should be getting a lot of articles on key media sites. These are often sites with very high traffic and have a powerful online presence. And that's good for you as a majority of these sites will also insert backlinks to your website, boosting your ranking significantly and driving credibility to your products and services.
PR is content!
Ever thought of it that way? You should, because your PR teams are constantly working out creative ways of driving stories. Press releases and documents made for the media are delivering powerful new and unique content you can add to your website (the press page for example) BUT, you can also rework them into editorial articles (again new content), drive social engagement and so forth. And if you have a great story to tell, there is a chance you'll even have video interviews and visual content generated by the press that you can again re-use and drive through your channels.
On top stories in the press will also be posted on the news channel's social media, will appear on feeds like Feedspot and so forth. Again, content potential and presence!
PR teams produce a lot of visual content!
On top of the content generated by press and third parties, PR teams will also produce visual content. A lot of time goes into ensuring company videos, images, infographics, and so forth are well designed and thought through. A nice bit of content again for you to use towards customers and increase your impact online.
PR drives social engagement
Stories in the press will drive both interest and response from your customers and stakeholders on social as they are often considered to be "big news" to appear in the media. On top, a lot of press stories will drive engagement from your staff members who will repost these out of pride and again hit your sales opportunities from different angels.
PR teams use influencers!
Delivering a credible story often requires PR teams to work with endorsers of that story. If you are supporting a good cause for example, PR teams will often include a quote of the benefactors of that effort or even work jointly to communicate on this. It's a gold mine of opportunities for marketers to make use of!
PR is a lead nurturing tool
Launch your new product and service well by ensuring you have a strong PR strategy as part of your outreach. A lot of online press coverage means a lot of online presence, that generates interest and drives sales opportunities. As stated, great press coverage online can easily be shared, added to newsletters and so forth!
Digital PR is positive ROI
I'm not arguing that other channels and approaches are not required here, a powerful media mix is critical to enabling sales, but PR is generally one of the most cost effective tools in your drawer. If done right it delivers a pretty solid ROI as it's generally lower cost to produce materials for press versus for a full blown marketing campaign. So a perfect addition to your 360 degree outreach!
So in short, don't ignore the power of Public Relations to help achieve your targets! Get a good PR person on board to help you, it's still a pretty specialized area - but if done right, well... get ready for some solid ROI.
About the author
Frederique Depraetere is a native English and Dutch speaker with a UK/US education and background. He is a marketing & communications professional with an extensive background in both Public Relations and (Digital) Marketing and is based in Belgium. As a freelancer he supports customers globally across a wide array of industries, from start-ups to established companies. On top of being a marketing professional with 23 years of experience at some of the highest levels in leading companies, Frederique is a pro copywriter, expert content creator and highly creative mind. He is also the author of "The Scarlet Crown", a thriller which he wrote and published under the name "Frederic Dalton".
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