Effective content marketing and public relations campaigns alone can differentiate your brand and have a tremendous impact on campaign results. Too often, companies silo these initiatives. But if you combine them, you’ll see stronger results.
PR and content marketing share the same goal: to create a strong brand message that resonates with target audiences. A good PR campaign can help increase awareness, reach new audiences, establish credibility, and encourage sales. A good content marketing strategy should touch on all these elements as well. Here are five key benefits of combining strategies for better results:
1. Amplify Content: Creating a stellar piece of content isn’t enough – people must see it if it’s going to make an impact. This is where a good PR strategy can really shine. PR firms specialize in knowing who the influencers are and how to reach them. PR can also help your content reach a new or broader audience. Together, PR and content teams can gain maximum exposure for a story and provide additional insights for reporters and influencers. For example, if the PR team is working on a brand launch announcement, adding infographics and a short video explaining the launch will help round out the story and give reporters content that can be easily shared online.
2. Unify the Brand Message: PR firms generally hold the keys to a brand’s key messages and brand values, which is why it makes sense to collaborate when creating content. PR firms can effectively weave in key brand messages throughout the content, while maintaining a consistent voice across all communications channels. In addition, planning content into your editorial calendar makes it easier to ensure your communications and marketing efforts are aligned across platforms. By creating a shared calendar, it’s easy to see how your PR, blog, white papers, and social media content work together to address key themes and topics.
3. Improve SEO: In today’s digital world, it makes sense to optimize your content with SEO. (If you aren’t doing this yet, it is time to start!) On a very basic level, issuing press releases online can help boost online authority since they remain in search engines and can enhance online visibility. Thought leadership pieces and white papers present another opportunity for PR to boost authority online. Including links back to a company’s website from high authority media outlets and websites can turn a one-time placement into a web-traffic generating machine.
4. Build Relationships and Broaden Reach: In today’s 24 news cycle, journalists and influencers are clamoring for high quality content. So why not ask them what they want? Journalists and influencers lend third party credibility to content and help widen the reach to new audiences. PR professionals spend a lot of their careers building trust and relationships with influencers, editors, bloggers and reporters. They can mine their relationships to see what types of stories the reporters want and create content ready-made for them. By working with influencers and journalists directly, (and delivering high quality content), you build a relationship and work toward becoming a trusted source.
5. Establish Thought Leadership: Establishing thought leaderships requires time and a variety of tactics. To build a personal brand, it is generally most effective to have a mix of opportunities ranging from in person events to written content. Having a PR firm pave the way through the right mix of speaking engagements, media interviews, and awards can help increase the likelihood that the person’s content will be read and shared.
Posted In Content Marketing, Public Relations, Technology