How PR Can Boost Your Digital Marketing Campaign

You’ve got $10k to spend on driving new sales.

Should you spend it on digital marketing, or on PR?

Okay, it’s a trick question.

To get the most bang for your buck, you need to invest in both PR and digital marketing.

There’s no denying that digital marketing is huge. It’s forecast that by 2021, digital marketing spending will have increased to $118bn.

However, many brands fall into the trap of thinking that since digital is the future of marketing, there’s no need to focus on anything else.

PR is vital to the long-term success of your brand, and can’t be ignored.

Plus, carefully implemented PR strategies can massively improve the results you see from each digital marketing campaign you run.

But how? Well, you’re about to find out.

Share Successful PR Efforts on your Social Media Channels

It’s been shown that 76% of journalists feel pressure to think about their story’s potential for sharing on social media platforms.

That means that when your PR team sends them a story, they’ll be thinking about its online potential.

You should be, too.

Instead of writing a great press release, having it published, and then moving on to the next thing, you should be thinking about how to continue getting value out of that story for as long as possible.

You could:

1. Publish links to the story on your social media pages
2. Ask followers to share their views on the story
3. Encourage industry influencers to share the story
4. Feature the story in your email newsletter
5. Create extra content to support the story and share online

Feature Great PR Articles in your Online Ads

Your online ads instantly become more trustworthy and authoritative when you’re sharing content from a third party.

Why should customers believe you when you talk about how great your own brand is?

There’s really no reason for them to – especially if you’re not well established yet.

However, when a prominent publication is talking about the benefits of your product or service, viewers are much more likely to sit and up and take notice.

One key benefit of digital marketing is the access to detailed metrics.

Try running two ad campaigns.

Campaign 1: An ad you’ve written yourself.

Campaign 2: An ad linking to a story about your company, written by someone else.

Try to focus both ads on a similar topic – for example, the release of a new product or opening of a new premises, to make the test as fair as possible.

Compare metrics to see which campaign gets the best results.

Most of the time, it will be the second.

This ties into our first point – you need to make sure your PR team understands the importance of creating content that will perform well online.

Increase the Reach of a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign with PR

How many times have you heard about something going viral online, offline?

We’re betting loads.

Half the time, we don’t even hear about the latest viral video or online craze until it’s featured on the evening news, or splashed across the front of a print newspaper.

If you run an amazing digital marketing campaign, make sure your PR team is looking at ways to use it.

Here’s the kind of headline you might expect to see when promoting a successful online campaign with PR:

1. “Company X causes a stir with #Y on Twitter”
2. “How one clever brand replied to a negative comment on social media”
3. “Meet the company that’s changing the way we shop online”

Nothing needs to be kept separate in digital marketing and PR.

The more you combine the two efforts, the better.

Use PR to Reach New Customers who can Convert Into Online Followers

Not reaching your target customers online?

Although it might sound counter-intuitive, traditional PR methods are one of the best ways to attract greater online engagement.

In the online world, where customers are constantly bombarded with messages, making it hard for your brand to stand out.

Offline, it’s much easier to capture attention.

Include the following in your traditional PR efforts to increase the chance of converting viewers into online followers:

1. Logos to show which social networks you’re on
2. Your social media handle
3. Your website URL
4. A search phrase to help readers find you online
5. QR codes linking to your online profiles
6. A call to action relating to your online presence
7. A special offer, competition or discount code that can be used online

Rework PR Content for use in Digital Marketing Campaigns

Your PR team creates all sorts of great content for you – why should you only get one use out of it?

Below are some ideas on how to rework PR content to enhance your digital marketing campaigns.

Speeches

A speech written by your PR team could be turned into a live YouTube broadcast, reworked into a quirky animated video, or used as the basis for written content.

Press releases

These can be published on your own site, sent to influential bloggers in your industry, or featured in crowdfunding campaigns.

Market research

Your PR team does tons of market research, and that can be really valuable in your digital marketing efforts. Encourage knowledge sharing. PR market research could help you identify new keywords to use in your SEO strategy.

Copywriting

Copy written by your PR team is often ideal for sharing in the form of blog posts, using to inform online sales copy, and breaking up into social media posts.

Anytime your PR team creates something, you should ask yourself:

“How can we use this to improve our presence online?”

Use PR to Deal with Negative Publicity Online

When you’re running digital marketing campaigns, negative interactions are almost impossible to avoid.

There have been plenty of business social media disasters over the years, and most of them could have been prevented by better communication between digital marketing and PR.

When PR and digital marketing come together, great things happen.

Don’t think you’re wasting money on PR – you’re actually strengthening your brand image and your digital marketing efforts.

Our PR team are experts in managing negative press and online reputation management. Leave it to the pros to fix your online image.