Articles: Blogs

in a world of content marketing, why do we still need pr?

Agency insights - 25th February 2018
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Marketing is always adapting.  Even in the years since I studied the subject at university, the industry has changed dramatically. Then, the focus was very much on advertising and product promotion, with no mention of the boom that digital and social marketing was about to have.

Over the past five years, the marketing mix has grown exponentially, and the ‘content is king’ revolution is well and truly alive. The emphasis for marketing is now heavily on digital content, specifically designed for the online medium where keywords and SEO scoring weigh heavily.

So where does PR fit into all of this?

Content marketing and PR have the same goal: to provide engaging, insightful and on-message content, which is seen by the right people. But, there are some differences which demonstrate the value that PR has.

As it always has been, the best promotion is through third-party endorsements. Self-published content, whether it be a white paper, video or infographic, will go some way towards telling your audience about your new product or service, but a well-established publication or influencer doing so will be much more valuable.

This is also why backlinks in online coverage are so important: a link to your website on a recognised and respectable news site will pay dividends for your SEO ranking, which will in turn increase your organic search leads.

Anyone working in PR knows the benefit of building meaningful relationships with journalists. Although content marketing is a great sales tool which produces a steady stream of on-message articles, gaining ‘earned’ media coverage and being recognised by publications that your customers trust falls to the talent of the PR team. The resulting engagement from your customers online will only amplify your digital footprint.

Both sides must work together; you can’t have one without the other. To not have PR means risking invisibility in the eyes of your potential customers, and without content marketing, there isn’t the supply of insight ready to be utilised.