Whilst generating print coverage remains an important part of PR campaigns, with circulation figures for printed publications rapidly declining year on year, securing online coverage in the form of a digital PR campaign offers many significant benefits to businesses.
Here we highlight some of the key benefits:
- SEO – Due to the high domain authority of many online news sites, there is a huge SEO benefit to generating online coverage. In fact, some clients employ us ONLY for this purpose!
- Longevity – Digital coverage of a story is permanent in the main, meaning people searching the internet will be able to find your online story long after your story in the paper has been consigned to the bin!
- Influencers – When undertaking a digital PR campaign, businesses develop valuable relationships with the key influencers in their sector – we aren’t just limited to journalists anymore! Influencers could be industry thought leaders, bloggers, celebrities and social media stars.
- Measurement – Digital PR is much easier to track than traditional PR activities. Through Google Analytics it is possible to analyse which online news sites or blogs have directed the most traffic. This allows you to focus the PR effort on those sites which generate the most interest to your website.
- Speed – Due to its very nature, online PR campaigns deliver much quicker results than a traditional print campaign. When working with a consumer glossy magazine for example, you will be supplying content for a magazine at least three months ahead of publication. Whereas online coverage can be secured within hours in some cases, and certainly within a week or so for most news stories.
- Reporting – Digital content is great for reporting and being able to track how potential customers and partners land on your site and the journey they take once there. Through Google Analytics, you can track the links they used, whether your users met any of your goals and how longed they stayed on your site. This provides valuable insight for reporting and measurement, highlighting valuable pieces of content, backlinks (when available) and channels to refer customers.
However, it’s also worth being aware of several key issues with online PR campaigns…
- Lack of control – As with any PR campaign, once the story has been released to media, it becomes out of our control and this can mean a story being mispresented in the media or not being run at all!
- Time – As above, like with any PR campaign, a lot of time goes into building and developing relationships with media and bloggers and although you may be able to secure some quick wins, long-term success requires an on-going investment.
- Budget – If you are hoping to work with a key blogger or influencer, the chances of having to support the PR campaign with budget are high. The majority of bloggers will require payment, and many even have agents you need to go through!
We hope this has given you some food for thought regarding maximising the opportunities presented by digital PR campaigns. We would always recommend a campaign that combines a variety of different sorts of channels which are relevant to the target audience you are looking to attract.
Check out this blog on the role of digital PR in generating so-called unicorn content or why not download our comprehensive guide to working with PR companies here.