At a time when marketing your product to the world or your next door neighbor is pretty much the same. Since it is based on their time spent online and on social media channels, the content creation and distribution prowess of Public Relations as a function may be the most critical facet of your marketing strategy.
“The adoption of content marketing as a marketing strategy has been increasing over the years. Content marketing revenue is forecast to continue to grow, and marketers are looking to seize this opportunity. In 2016, about 42 percent of B2C marketers stated that they are planning to increase their content marketing spending in the following year, and about 33 nonprofit marketers are planning to increase their budget for content marketing as well.” Content Marketing – Statistics & Facts | Statista, https://www.statista.com/topics/1650/content-marketing/ (accessed May 07, 2018).
Now considering how content is the cornerstone for most Digital strategies of marketing, whether it is SEO and by extension your website, your blog, or your social media presence. The question to be asked is, are the PR guys the best equipped to take this forward as your core marketing option. Let’s take a look at some of the key ingredients of a solid content and outreach strategy.
Understanding the demographic need
Positioning the right story
Using platforms for content distribution
Reinforcing the message through owned, earned and paid media
If we evaluate each of these elements, it would seem that the PR guys do have a genuine advantage in bringing together the marketing strategy and executing it.
Understanding The Demographic Needs
As PR professionals the most important aspect of adding value to the business is to have an ear to the ground and know exactly what the customers think and expect from the brands they interact with. In the past, this may have been typically difficult, but with Social Media, most users are very vocal about what they like, who they look up to and how they view a brand. Even if they are not vocal, data analytics and behavioral measurements give you a firm idea of their preferences. Considering this a must have for PR professionals; they would be positioned at an advantage to provide a clear and direct picture of who the target audience is and what demographics are to be messaged to. Not to say that marketers do not have this skill set, in fact they are very in tune with the audience but may not be interacting with them as much as a PR professional may.
“At a high level, target audiences can be quickly defined. For example, the target audience for accounting software could be people who want to organize their finances to operate their businesses more efficiently. This offers a good starting point to create messaging to drive marketing and sales.
In most cases, however, there has to be a more granular approach to target audiences. Why? The reality is a product can appeal to a variety of buyers who may have different needs and goals. It means a one-size-fits-all marketing and sales approach may not work because it’s not focused enough.”
The Importance Of Really Knowing Your Target Audiences.” FORBES Web. 27 Mar. 2018 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/markevans/2013/03/20/the-importance-of-really-knowi>.
To get the sharper focus and to drive the granular approach a PR professional may be able to give the relevant information required to ensure success.
Identifying buyer personas, analyzing media consumption patterns and engaging with the audience on social media is the very core of PR and is also that now of the marketing function.
As this exercise continues the targeting process, the resonating messages and the on the ground realities, become more and more evident. A sustained effort towards this can indeed lead to high conversions for the organization, and this is something that PR can genuinely champion.
Now I know it sounds as if all the marketers do not know how to do these same things, in fact, if anything they can do these very well, the only reason I am identifying these skill sets is to illustrate the role of PR in the broader marketing engine. How is PR acting any different from the role of the marketer? As we continue to analyze the skillsets the thought, I want to leave you with is: Are the boundaries of PR and Marketing that blurred, enough to be interchangeably used in today’s day and age? Is valid to assume that a PR professional can, in fact, be referred to a Marketing person and fill those shoes without batting an eye.
We will explore further in the next part of this series to see how well matched is the PR Skillset to the marketing function and its core requirements.
Is PR the next marketing function – Positioning the right story
Now PR works with the basic premise of using facts and information and building a persuasive and clear narrative to tell the story.
So many business managers, marketing managers and sometimes even PR professionals forget to benchmark their messaging against critical factors which make the story persuasive, clear and ultimately newsworthy.
The essence of storytelling lies in the newsworthiness, the recency and the “Wow” factor. Without these core features your Press Releases, your events and any other interaction with your audience may fall on deaf ears. So let’s look at some variables which can drive newsworthiness and how the PR function typically has an advantage using these:
Impact:
Level of outreach, the number of eyeballs, the number of people who are affected by the news that is shared. Is the news only going to make a difference to a niche market, or specific geography of individuals, does it only relate to a few industries or does it have a far-reaching impact on the population?
PR professionals have an ear to the ground and can assess the level of impact of each piece of news, with a strong distribution network they can ensure that the right people are getting the message that is needed to drive through a relevant call to action.
Geography
Each message cannot be evergreen and applicable for the whole world all the time. Most times news is very specific to regions; marketing messages need to be focused on specific geographies, countries, cities, even commercial and residential areas within the cities. The advent of modern social media platforms, search engine marketing platforms the geographic targeting has become an invaluable tool for marketers and definitely gives them an edge in reaching the right audiences. PR professionals still have the ability to keep up contacts with local journals, interact with on the ground events and use social media tools to keep their message on point and dripping through to the laser targeted geographically driven audience.
Uniqueness
A key message must be unique. Otherwise, it is just part of the broader noise, now both marketing and PR professionals understand the value of a unique message and how important it is to build. Identifying unique stories and copy is relatively harder from a marketers standpoint, the amount of noise you compete with, in advertising, and the very limited time you have in front of the audience can make it very tricky. For PR professionals using a Press Release or an announcement as a tool gives them an edge to be able to narrate an entire story and explain very clearly how it is unique. While still an art the Press Release can be an extremely beneficial tool to give a unique identity that the brand needs. Additionally, it comes from credible sources such as the media and journalists adding that bit more of value to the overall message.
Overall PR seems to have quite a few advantages and we could see a merging of the disciplines very quickly as more and more organisations look towards a unified digital and media strategy to maximise their visibility.