Why a Good Digital PR Strategy Is So Important Adding digital PR to your outreach strategy is a win for your brand and your bottom line.
By Adam Petrilli Edited by Kara McIntyre
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
For companies these days, brand reputation is undeniably linked to success. Yet, one of the best digital marketing tools for building that reputation, expanding your online reach, and, ultimately, harnessing customer loyalty, i.e. digital PR, is often overlooked. Why?
In many cases, the answer may be a fundamental misunderstanding not only of what digital PR is but also of the many advantages a good digital PR strategy can provide your business, particularly over the long haul.
Here's a breakdown of how the right online PR approach can boost your reputation and put your small business on the map.
Digital PR builds trust and credibility
Utilizing carefully calibrated elements of content marketing, SEO, social media and influencer marketing, successful digital public relations campaigns pump consistently positive brand messaging to the forefront, exactly where customers are engaging most with your business. When done right, digital PR strategies help create a relatable story driven by actual customer experiences, capitalizing on reviews, testimonials and influencer support to bolster trust in your brand.
Unlike traditional PR that manages messaging and brand credibility through print, radio, and TV, customized digital PR services highlight your values and your positives on the web. And unlike digital marketing, where messaging tends to come directly from the company, successful digital PR campaigns distribute unbiased stories on authoritative news and industry sites. This lends your brand a level of social proof and authenticity typically unavailable through other outreach methods.
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Digital PR increases online visibility
Aligned with your organic marketing and paid search strategies, robust digital PR campaigns can deliver a powerful boost to your online presence, growing your brand imprint across critical markets and customer touchpoints. An effective digital PR campaign capitalizes on proven search engine optimization (SEO) techniques like SEO content creation, guest posting and online profile building to get your brand front-and-center on high-authority websites and news platforms.
With quality optimized assets talking up your brand across high-traffic resources, your business begins to make a noticeable splash across search engines and results pages. This cultivates more exposure throughout your target audience. It also creates positive, share-worthy brand content consumers can share across social media channels, creating new brand mentions that spread your message even further.
Additionally, digital PR content posted on top-ranking sites provides high-quality backlinks that can boost your site's own ranking signals and organic search traffic. Recognizing more ties between your website and those with solid traffic and domain authority numbers, Google may potentially reward your site with even higher domain authority and a stronger position for key industry queries.
Digital PR improves sentiment and industry standing
By spreading the word on high-authority online media outlets, third-party forums and credible industry sites, your digital PR campaign helps thrust your brand image and narrative center stage. With timely coverage and increased visibility across high-traffic resources, key company offerings, events and your distinct brand value-add have the potential to reach more people and achieve the relevance and impact needed to cultivate higher brand awareness.
Carving out your footprint on trusted industry sites helps spotlight and reinforce a story that resonates with your target audience. And because online crises can hit your business from anywhere (unfair reviews, harmful news articles, etc.) and at any time, having a proactive and effective online PR strategy in place is certainly a necessity.
Digital PR tools empower you not just to respond to and repair the online dents and dings that come with doing business online. They also help create a digital brand bulwark of positive customer sentiment that continually prevents even costlier damage and fallout, all while protecting your business from future online flare-ups.
Related: 5 Steps to Becoming a Genuine Authority In Your Industry
Digital PR cultivates leads, a potential boon to sales and profitability
As with any type of outreach effort and spend, the ultimate goal is to generate results for your bottom line. And while it's not designed to convert new customers on the spot, the ramped-up industry authority, brand awareness, online visibility and customer sentiment built by the right digital PR agency can provide a powerful lead generation boost over the long term.
With your targeted digital PR campaign distributing credible, third-party content across high-profile sites, you're able to make a meaningful, lasting impression on potential buyers, nudging them a little closer to the finish line. And with positive articles, brand announcements and online press releases posted on popular, high-authority online publications, your digital PR aims more customers at your site, pointing more significant numbers of website traffic (and, ideally, motivated buyers) to your online home base and closer than ever to the point of purchase.
These days, brand trust and sentiment play an outsized role in the decision-making process, and can often be what cinches or breaks the deal when it comes to choosing you over the competition. A good digital PR agency provides that critical lifeline of support your company needs to maintain that trust and become the brand magnet pulling customers in the right direction.
