Time spent online exceeds time spent with all other media, including TV. With the high usage of social media, smart phones and tablets, as well as the need for instant information, marketing teams are under increasing pressure to make sure everything is digitally-connected and mobile-enabled. Digital was once a separate and siloed strategy from PR. Today, digital and PR are dependent on each other’s success.
With your customers spending more time online, it’s crucial to employ a PR strategy that includes not only getting heard in key publications, but also promoting your media placements and articles online. This is known as content optimization – the process of extending the value of content by promoting it online, whether it be through SEO, Adwords, retargeting, optimized landing pages and the like. Good content can play a key role in generating leads and creating sales.
There are so many B2B technology companies with terrific products and services following “the way we’ve always done it” marketing, which won’t cut it for much longer. Many manufacturer websites are out of date and not optimized for mobile (79% of them to be exact) and yet 80% of peoples’ time spent online is from a mobile device – yikes! Many companies are also lacking a content management system – which means it’s not easy to add valuable content, like blog posts, to showcase your company’s expertise.
Instead of doing a complete website overhaul, a few of our B2B clients have developed optimized landing pages to leverage content originally created by Inprela for trade publications, to promote key marketing initiatives and to capture leads. Housing valuable content on a dedicated page on your website, educating and nurturing customers toward a sale, allows PR practitioners to provide measurable data (like web traffic, click-throughs and downloads) to demonstrate more measurable business impact of PR. Optimized landing pages allow clients to reach the customer with customized messaging and information based on their needs. (Side note and shameless plug: Inprela just implemented this strategy with our new website!)
While optimized landing pages are one smart strategy deployed by Inprela clients, there are, of course, other strategies that should not be overlooked, such as email campaigns, blogging and social media management, all of which depend on PR messaging.
PR or digital alone cannot be the silver bullet, but the integration of the two can come pretty close to hitting the target. We must deploy content that speaks directly to our target audience, where they spend their time online. That means we must not simply sharing news with the media, but actually become the media.
