Whether you’re a small start-up business or you’re an established brand, you should be using public relations to increase brand awareness and improve brand reputation.
When you think of PR, your mind may conjure up images of press conferences and news reports. However, there is much more to PR – especially when you use a combination of traditional PR and digital PR.
But what exactly does traditional PR include? And what is digital PR? What are the differences, and how can they be used together? We’re going to answer these questions in this post: read on to learn more about PR, including the different types of PR and how they can be used together.
Traditional PR
PR (public relations) is the act of building a positive relationship between your brand and your existing and potential customers / clients. Some classic PR channels used in traditional PR strategies include newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, etc.
Depending on your business, you may benefit from earning national media coverage in print (e.g local newspapers), or you may benefit more from a thought leadership piece in industry trade press. One size does not fit all when it comes to PR, and what works for you may not work for another brand.
A PR specialist will build a positive brand image on all relevant channels. More PR agencies are using ‘pull PR’ – which is the act of drawing consumers to your brand, as opposed to pushing your message onto potential consumers.
PR is more than just about press releases – although issuing company news via press releases can be an important aspect of traditional PR. It can also incorporate aspects such as proactively and reactively pitching to journalists, content marketing, blog writing, entering awards and events coordination. Public relations is about building and protecting your brand and, as such, can also occasionally be about crisis and reputation management.
Digital PR
Digital PR has the same goal as traditional PR – however, the objectives are met using PR in combination with online methods such as SEO, blogging, social media, content marketing and email marketing. Digital PR uses public relations with a wider marketing strategy – including aspects such as lead generation, inbound marketing, and SEO. Digital marketing, public relations and media relations can work hand in hand to create the perfect PR strategy. An effective digital PR campaign can drastically improve SEO efforts, and increase the chances of you ranking highly on the SERPs (search engine results pages). This means that it is possible to measure the results of a traditional PR campaign.
SEO (search engine optimization) aims at increasing the amount of traffic to your site, improving conversion rates and ultimately generating more leads. By improving your online presence and visibility, you’re sure to generate more traffic to your site.
Digital PR is a form of content marketing. Content marketing includes key digital PR techniques, whether it be creating blog posts, writing web copy such as location or collection pages, or other forms of content.
Content marketing is the creation and sharing of content – content that is useful, relevant, authentic, and authoritative. Content can prove to existing and potential clients that your brand has knowledge on certain topics, and can improve the reputation and trustworthiness of your business. If you have engaging and informative content out there, then potential clients are more likely to think of you and trust you when it comes to buying what you’re selling, whether it be a product or a service.
Digital PR can be a great way for you to gain genuine customer reviews, gain and improve online publicity, and acquire quality backlinks from other online sites and publications. By using digital PR, you can reach your target audience / potential customers online. This can be achieved by ensuring your brand name is visible on a variety of platforms, whether it be online journals, blog posts, online news reports, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or even YouTube.
If you’re a local business that wants to improve your online presence on a local scale, then you could focus your PR efforts on getting your business features on local online platforms – for example, local news outlets, local blogs, or local websites. You could also spend time trying to acquire reviews from local bloggers or other local businesses.
Combining Traditional PR and Digital PR
Both methods of PR are used in the industry amongst PR professionals – and it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Digital PR does not make traditional PR redundant – both digital and traditional PR can work together to generate results that are more than the sum of their parts.
Traditional PR is still as important as ever in 2022 – despite the fact that more and more businesses are going digital. This is because traditional PR methods have worked for generations – people still watch TV, read the newspaper, and listen to the radio on the way to work. Traditional media outlets have enormous reach and their content is also streamed and posted on the internet. In a world where algorithms and citizen journalism is more prevalent, people still turn to trusted, authoritative sources for their news content.
A pure play PR strategy may work for one business, and a solely digital PR strategy may work for another. However, in many cases, it is a combination of the two that generates the best results and proves the most effective. Using both techniques in a PR strategy can engage a much wider audience and target a variety of target audiences. Using digital PR, you can target an online audience through blog posts and social media, whereas using traditional PR, you can capture an offline audience. After all, not everybody uses social media and reads blog posts.
Many effective PR campaigns use digital PR to complement a traditional PR strategy and vice versa. For example, a PR specialist may promote a TV interview online using social media, or use paid ads to capture a specific target audience. Likewise, they may use an email campaign to share company information or events such as awards ceremonies.
An effective PR strategy can help your business grow in a variety of ways – it can help you attract new talent, acquire new customers, generate leads, raise funding, and win awards. At Tuesday Media, we use both traditional and digital PR in perfect harmony to grow your brand. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you – or click here to learn more about our services.
