Why digital PR is becoming more effective than traditional PR
The marketing world is ever-changing and, with a bigger focus on digital than ever before, it is vital that we evolve as the industry does. Josie Atkinson, Content Manager of leading hotel marketing agency Journey, gives us an insight into why digital PR is so important.
Reach a wider audience
By engaging with the vast online world, digital PR is able to reach a larger and more relevant audience than offline media forms such as print, television, and events. Blog posts, online reviews, search engines, and forums are all easily accessible to any online user and can be shared with almost anyone at the click of a button. By being so accessible and shareable, online media can reach a wide audience interested in the industry you work in.
Take a ‘top tips’ article published on your blog, share it on social media, outreach to industry websites, link to the article from forums, and optimise the content for key phrases so it can be found by those using search engines. That’s five instant ways you can begin to reach prospects by using the same content on different platforms.
Stay relevant for longer
Offline publications are often disposable or have sell-by dates. As soon as an event is over, or a magazine distributes next month’s edition, your exposure gets replaced by something else.
Traditional PR is limited to particular time frames due to its print distribution but digital does not have this problem. Once published online, your articles will be archived for all to see for years to come and, what’s more, you can make them easy to find by publishing them on industry websites, blogs, and online magazines. This means that the content you publish will continue to bring you custom rather than being contained to a time frame.
Send traffic to your Website
Online presence is key, and if you aren’t positioning yourself online, it is easy to be forgotten. New customers won’t just land on your website, you need to direct them to the right place. The more your content is mentioned in online publications, the more your name will resound in the digital space, encouraging readers to explore your services.
Where phone numbers and addresses work best in offline media forms, websites work best in digital, providing the perfect platform to link through to your site. Your website is your online portfolio and should be the place customers go to learn about you and your services; by directing extra traffic to your site, you are already positioning more people at the beginning of the sales funnel.
Gain authority from Google
Although offline PR can work to drive minimal traffic to your website, visits are the only benefit your website will see. Digital PR helps Google to notice you, which in turn gives your website more authority, helps you to show up for online searches, and also increases visitors to your site - all of these will help you see an increase in sales.
High quality links to your website from other authoritative websites play a key part in your rankings for search terms related to your business. These links need to be natural and authentic, but if industry websites are talking about you and linking to your site, Google will see that you are providing a service that is beneficial to its users.
