Turning Traditional PR into Digital PR
When looking at the marketing wheel, each spoke represents an important element that keeps the wheel turning. These can include PR, digital marketing/social media, print & web advertising, television commercials, influencers, and other components. Each one requires a dedicated team to properly develop and execute a strategy for success. While many agencies try to offer every service possible, a great agency will know that results suffer tremendously if there isn’t a dedicated team for each service.
At GreenRoom for example, we hone in on two services that we feel are the best compliments for each other: PR and digital marketing.
With one team that is focused solely on PR and another focused only on digital efforts, there are plenty of efficiencies that come with having these two necessary components under one roof.
Benefits include consistent messaging along social media platforms and secured media, ease of communication between the two teams, and strategies that reflect the efforts happening on the social media platforms and in the media. We hear time and time again from companies who view digital marketing as a tool for customer relations, not as a tool to further market the brand and drive sales.
To us, digital marketing and social media are new frontiers of opportunity to place your brand in front of millions of potential customers. Better still, digital efforts can extend the reach of great PR and lengthen the life of heavy – hitting press pieces. What is news today will be old news tomorrow, but if you’ve been featured in an outlet with one of the highest reader and subscriber numbers, wouldn’t you want to turn that media hit into a tool to gain more customers? This is exactly what a targeted digital marketing strategy can do. By identifying an audience based on sales or desire to increase growth in a market, your digital team can take a great placement secured through your PR strategy and amplify the coverage across your social media platforms using advertising strategies to place these wins right in front of a particular audience.
At GreenRoom we take this a step further; while the PR team is busy engaging with the media, our social team is also engaging with the social platforms for of these media outlets. By working with an outlet’s digital team, we gain insights into how that media outlet posts. This ensures that the brand is included and tagged, while we offer suggestions such as hashtags and key terms. This is a great way to maximize a post even before any money is spent on the digital fronts.
Utilizing PR and digital marketing to work together to amplify and extend the life of great coverage is a powerful tool in your marketing toolbox.
Your PR team should always relay media hits as soon as they publish so your digital team can leverage these within their arsenal. Instead of the consumer relying on you to explain why the product is great and worth the purchase, you can utilize a review from a marquee press outlet and amplify it across your customer base. While this is a strategy overlooked by many, companies that are using this method are turning traditional PR into digital PR of the 21st century.
