Benefits to using a digital PR strategy

Public Relations, also known as PR, is one of the most effective methods of marketing that a business can use to raise awareness of their brand, and even more importantly, trust. In the modern age, integrity and reliability in the eyes of your audience is a massive plus point, particularly as a brand.  

You will rely upon your standing in the eyes of your customers and prospects to survive and succeed as a business, so it’s important to maintain and build on your reputation with effective PR strategies. 

But it’s not only the reputational value that effective PR can generate for you and your brand; there are plenty of other strong benefits to Public Relations that you may not be aware of. This is our guide to 3 great benefits to using a Digital PR strategy. 

What is PR? 

Also known as Public Relations, PR is the discipline of marketing that a business will use to create and build a positive image in the eyes of the public. It may also be used to raise awareness of a cause, particularly one which is seen as divisive. There are several types of PR, including Crisis Communications, Media Relations, Strategic Communications, Public Affairs, and Online/Social Media Communications.  

PR will often be a combination of an action, and then the story telling of that action in the form of a Press Release. This story can be told before the action to raise awareness and anticipation of it, after the event to bring further attention to it, or generally both.  

In this article, we will be generally be referring to Media Relations and Online/Social Media Communications.  

Media Relations PR is the method used by businesses to share important, or valuable messages with a target audience via various forms of media. There are so many different platforms and publications available, and all journalists need something to write that will fill their columns.

The more exclusive, unique, or positive the story is, the more likely they are to use it to fill those columns. Controversial opinion or activity is also a draw for many journalists, but if it is intentionally shared with them then it is important to understand the risks attached.  

Companies may use PR Professionals and Agencies to send Press Releases to share their positive news, as these agencies and professionals often have a direct line to journalists and newsmakers of many types.  

Online & Social Media Communications PR works in a similar way to Media Relations, but incorporates the use of popular blogs and social media pages to bring a particular message to the online world. Customers are using the Internet more and more often to do research, or make their judgement of all manner of things, quite often vocally to anybody that will listen.  

For this reason, businesses will send a Press Release to voices and platforms to share unique takes on a certain subject, in the hope that they’ll be picked up and shared across the net. If a story is picked up and shared across multiple sites and pages, then it may take on a life of its own and go viral.

3 great benefits to using a digital PR strategy 

Reputation Management 

A solid PR campaign should work in the favour of the brand or business, and its reputation. Public Relations is a huge part of building your credibility and gaining trust with consumers. You can shout from the rooftops how great you are, or how much of an expert in the field your brand is, but often you’ll be shouting into the void.

A well-timed and well-constructed Press Release with something new and interesting to say will stand a greater chance of being picked up as a story, and suddenly it isn’t you that’s shouting from the rooftops. It’s a solid source that’s trusted by the reader, and then your credibility is improved with vital new minds.

Search Engine Optimisation 

What you might not know is that getting a Press Release picked up for publication online can massively help your discoverability on search engines such as Google. The World Wide Web is exactly what it says it is; a huge web-like network of sites and pages that are connected to one another in billions of different combinations.  

The biggest way they connect to one another is through links, also known as backlinks. These links help a search engine ‘crawler’ to discover different available pages from the net, by jumping from page to page via the links they contain.  

So, by getting your Press Release picked up an outlet with a strong network, your site immediately becomes a part of that network of links. The more outlets that pick up your story, the stronger your domain grows, and therefore more likely to be discovered by people searching online for the products and services you offer.

Brand Awareness

The beauty of PR is that whilst you can reach your target audience with an effective strategy, but it can also expose your brand to new and untapped audiences, particularly with digital campaigns.  

The Internet has billions of users, and one good PR story delivered at the right time via the right channels can reach a nice chunk of them, taking your brand from well known in your local town to known globally. A boost to your brand awareness can be a game-changer for your business, and its bank balance.  

What should I do for my PR campaign? 

A good PR campaign will have an action and a story, and it will be creative, unique and interesting. For low-budget, medium impact campaigns, why not run a survey asking questions that are relevant to your industry? Ask the kinds of questions that might throw up surprising answers, which can then be turned into a story that you can present to the media, with your comments on the matter as the well-placed industry expert? Niche publications may take your story and run with it, giving some valuable backlinks from relevant sources.

If you have a bit more time and budget, then a PR stunt is a great way to pique the interest of journalists and their readers. Take the massively successful Red Bull Stratos campaign from 2012 as an example, in which they sent Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner to almost 128,000 feet with a helium balloon.

He became the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall, and the results of the stunt were plain. Over 8 million people watched it live on YouTube, and Red Bull generated $1.6bn from the campaign.

It doesn’t have to be anything as high-budget or extreme as the sportsman in freefall, but the sentiment remains. Creativity and originality are key to a campaign that will be picked up. Send out a Press Release ahead of time to generate interest, you may even find that the journalists and bloggers appear at the scene of the stunt to capture their own version of events. After the stunt, send out another Press Release to provide a great story, and see where it can take you and your brand.   

We are a very creative bunch here at Gala Education & Marketing, so get in touch and let’s chat about what you’re hoping to achieve. We can help you to create a plan for the campaign, and offer some ideas on how you might pull your stunt off.  

We have access to thousands of UK-based journalists, editors and bloggers from countless sources, both print and digital. Whether it’s a niche subject or of national interest, we can work with you to create interesting and appealing Press Releases, and send them directly to our network of outlets on your behalf. 

Give us a call on 01709 911663, or drop us an enquiry via the form below.  

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