22 Aug The value of digital PR
As we mention in our book, digital PR is gold dust for small businesses, as it helps spread the word about your offering without spending a cent. The key to doing this successfully though, is to have a story worth sharing that people are interested in reading about, as well as creating high quality ‘free’ content for editors. We’ve seen the benefits of this first hand with the launch of our book, and the subsequent coverage of our business we’ve managed to generate from it.
Releasing a book into the wild is one thing, but wondering what others will say about it after reading it is another thing entirely. After all, reviews can be both good or bad – or lukewarm. Luckily for us, the coverage of ‘Small Business – Big Plans’ has been overwhelmingly positive so far. We’re glad it’s met a need among small business owners and we’re grateful that people are sharing it.
To demonstrate the value of PR, compare this list of where we’ve been featured in the media so far, with what we would have had to pay to place an advertisement or editorial in them:
- An extract in News24
- “It’s basically your dream agency without the fuss and it fits in your briefcase” – a wonderful review on Good Things Guy.
- An interview on IOL
- A review on the Money Show on Cape Talk by Bronwyn Williams, Trend Translator and Future Finance Specialist at Flux Trends
- An interview on Lotus FM with Catherine
- A review in Farmer’s Weekly: “…both writers have earned their stripes in digital marketing.”
There’s also coverage on Daily Maverick, Fast Company, Drum magazine, Black Business Quarterly, Acumen magazine (GIBS), Fairlady mag and Sunday Times still coming in the months to come, so it’s a long term gift that keeps on giving.
Editorial content
Valuable PR content may not always be coverage of a new product or service you’ve launched – you can just as easily write an editorial piece that offers valuable content to your target audience while aligning with your brand. This alignment should be subtle and not overt though, or else it veers into advertorial territory, which media outlets will charge you to publish.
When done correctly, editorial PR can help your small (or any sized) business to:
- Build a reputation in your niche: You’re probably so engrossed in the day-to-day running of your business that you don’t realise what a subject matter expert you actually are. What do we mean? Well, what seems super obvious to you is not to other people. You’ve got opinions, experience and knowledge to share, and digital PR is a powerful way of letting others know about this. This means that when the time comes for them to recommend or choose a company or person to do a job, yours will be the first one that comes to mind.
- Strengthen your SEO strategy: The technical importance of digital PR is that content posted on top-ranking sites provides you with high quality back links to your site, which boost the credibility of your domain. In laymen’s terms, this means that these back links from credible sources prove to Google that you’re a worthwhile resource, so it starts to direct more organic searches to your site. Bear in mind that this is a long term strategy though – and simply having one article out there is not going to cut it from an SEO perspective, rather it’s about consistent output that has a cumulative effect.
- More online traffic, more leads: The most obvious benefit is that the more people that are checking out your site (after reading an article about you online), the more leads, enquiries and sales you’ll hopefully receive.
In terms of getting editorial PR pieces placed, media are always looking for fresh material, so if you can write great articles (or use tools or other people in your company to do so), that are perfect for their audience and offer their readers something of value – it’s a slam dunk really.
Need a digital PR strategy or campaign? We’ve worked with various companies over the years, helping them do just this. Get in touch if you’d like to collaborate.
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