Digital marketing and PR have long been competing forces in business. In traditional work environments, digital marketing and advertising worked in one area while public relations worked separately in another.
In the office of the marketing team, they were busy collecting data and working to build out sales and leads. Additionally, they were researching new channels to test on and ensuring they were visible to customers, both repeat ones as well as new ones.
In the PR office, time was being spent on media relations and getting the message out there as wide as possible. This meant getting your client mentioned on as many large media publications as possible while monitoring overall sentiment for the client and staying up to date on any industry happenings that might affect that.
This strategy may have made sense in 20th century and even up to the early to mid-2000’s. The goals were entirely different for each team – why would a radio segment impact the data being gathered on a recent paid search campaign on Google Ads? Nowadays, however, in a world where customers are bouncing from one mobile phone, to TV, to desktop, to radio…the hyper-connected nature of modern day consumers and their buying habits leaves PR agencies impacting marketing numbers and marketing data impacting PR communications. Digital marketing and PR have never been so closely knit.
Setting your public relations agency up in a way where PR efforts can be measured alongside the efforts of marketing is a top priority for many businesses and both fields are starting to work more closely together than ever before.
The Data Doesn’t Lie
A 2016 study by the Pew Research Center focused on how people used social media and how it, along with the communications they had with friends and family, impacted their buying habits. A few of the most interesting points:
Similarly, another interesting study done by Nielsen states that:
The fact is that the modern day consumer landscape is entirely different than when digital marketing and pr teams worked entirely separate from each other. Fortunately, there’s still time to remove the silos that prevent teams from communicating effectively with each other and complimenting it as well.
Joining the Teams
How do you get these teams to start working effectively alongside and with each other? The first is acknowledging that one team’s work will impact another and that age-old barriers meant to separate these teams need to be removed.
Speaking from my experience consulting and working with PR agencies on marketing and analytics, this means a kickoff call at the start of things and weekly or bi-weekly check-ins to share data and insights. Maybe I’m running a paid social campaign for them and have noticed a large uptick in a specific geographic region sharing posts or have seen a large increase in referral traffic from lesser known news outlets regarding a developing story. Maybe the PR agency is anticipating a decrease in online sentiment for their client due to some recent product updates and wants to get in front of it with targeted ads to set the record straight. Sharing information like that with each other has helped us both be proactive instead of reactive in our own areas of expertise and have helped our digital marketing and pr efforts grow and improve.
For public relations firms looking to increase their online visibility through digital marketing best practices, there are many things you can start implementing today. Some that come to mind:
What’s Next in Digital Marketing & PR
It’s one thing to continue doing things the same way we’ve always done them and it’s another to accept that business, like many other things in life, are constantly changing and evolving. By breaking down the barriers that prevent cross-functional teamwork among digital marketing and PR and incorporating processes from the other team, we can emphasize and boost the messages that both teams are trying to tell.
The answer to a public relations question very well might exist in the data us marketers have in Analytics. The answer to a marketing question that I have might exist in past engagement with consumers or in sentiment analyses. By working together, digital marketing and PR can help the other succeed.
Interested in working together? Please reach out to me via the contact form on my homepage.