Why online PR is essential to
your online marketing campaign
Maintaining the buzz
Oscar Wilde said: “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about” and if you’re engaging in online PR, creating and – most importantly - maintaining a buzz is essential. PR remains one of the most cost-effective methods of message delivery in the arsenal of Comms tools.
More companies, advertisers, audiences, and editors are turning to the Internet to cost-effectively raise brand awareness and massage sales. But the audiences are now found in different places. The market has moved online, and your PR needs to.
The Internet has been one of the major impactors in the last three years on traditional PR. There has been a marked increase in the number of companies investing in online PR to promote to hyperlocal, regional, and global audiences.
Increasing enquiries and sales
Online PR should feed into the wider strategy of online marketing, as it touches upon other areas, including brand monitoring, social media participation, social media content creation and social bookmarking. Effective online PR can deliver more than attention – it can increase inquiries and drive sales, in a cost-effective, reputation-building manner.
Many fall into the trap of thinking that Online PR is essentially about delivering media relations to online-based media, alongside submissions to press release centres and news wires. Whilst this usually forms a part of an overall Online PR campaign, it needs to go deeper. Much deeper.
Online PR is more than media
There are other groups to consider in making a truly successful Online PR push work: industry forums, specific bloggers, related online influencers, prolific tweeters, and reviewers – all need to be given the opportunity to become part of the generated buzz and have their say. With your help.
There are key concepts to remember when evaluating whether to engage in utilizing Online PR to promote your products and services: firstly, consumers who research online to make purchasing decisions; and secondly, decision-makers who communicate their findings on products and services online.
If your Online PR is not on their radar, they may not be given the full set of information, reducing and de-valuing their conclusions to buy or positively comment.
Can you afford for this to happen?
Where to start?
An effective Online PR campaign should be methodical, logical and measurable – including the following straightforward steps:
Monitor & manage Utilising expertise in online marketing and SEO techniques plays an essential part in
delivering effective online PR. Start by identifying industry keywords and monitoring online reputation across
Highly measurable
Because Online PR feeds into, and is also an inherent part of, other forms of online marketing, it also should be highly-measurable, utilizing the metrics and analytics used to monitor, measure and evaluate other forms of online marketing.
Armed with detailed information, it becomes a simple task to relay the success of Online PR throughout your organisation – often a challenge for marketing managers, when the workforce struggles at times to see the value delivered.
No longer; Online PR forms the perfect successor to traditional PR methods and delivered at a fraction of the cost. Instantly. Globally. Powerfully.
Can we help?
