As public relations and other marketing disciplines continue to converge and intertwine, having a comprehensive digital communications strategy becomes more important than ever. If your purpose is to effectively raise awareness for your brand and underscore your industry leadership in an increasingly competitive media landscape, what are the key factors that make for the most impactful strategy?
A Balance Of Paid, Earned And Owned Media
A holistic communications program incorporates a strategic mix of owned, earned and paid media, each playing to its respective strength. An integrated approach ensures that key messages are comprehensively amplified through each channel. Thus, measuring and fine-tuning strategy is essential for optimizing efforts and driving business outcomes.
• Owned media refers to web properties that a brand has full control over and that current and potential customers will interact with the most.
• Earned media pertains to coverage, shares, reposts and reviews on third-party sites, publications and external social media channels. A strong indicator of progress includes share of voice — the percentage of a company’s earned media coverage versus that of competitors — which provides insights into visibility within a target market.
• Paid media includes paid content promotion, paid influencers, promoted social media content and display advertisements.
Influencer Marketing
In our experience, few promotional techniques rival the effectiveness of influencer marketing with respect to visibility and validation. That’s why working with bloggers, trusted tastemakers and social media figures has become a powerful vehicle for raising awareness and generating leads.
Building an influencer program starts with identifying respected industry voices, the individuals who show up in keyword-based searches and have cultivated a strong following within your target segment. Then, evaluate how effectively their platform and views will inspire action. Next, engage with your shortlist to find synergies and lay the groundwork for a mutually beneficial relationship.
Content Marketing
Content marketing can be a key way to elevate your company, products and services to stand out among competitors. Develop educational whitepapers, blogs, industry reports, videos and webinars that offer exclusive information relative to customer persona interests and pain points. This can help your company become a trusted information source.
A customer-oriented strategy and well-planned execution provides the opportunity to be found by potential customers through search engines, grow an engaged audience, acquire new customers, and foster relationships and sales with existing customers.
Content marketing requires significant planning, coordination and patience. The goal is to develop and distribute content that will be compelling and useful to key customers. Therefore, the planning process includes identifying key customer personas and analyzing their goals, challenges and decision making process so you can learn how to best engage them with content along the way.
Thought Leadership
A key component of a strong content marketing strategy includes a thought leadership program. Establishing your company’s leaders as visionary subject matter experts within respective industries allows readers to look to your company, executives and web channels for information, best practices and, ultimately, guidance on products and services.
Editors and readers are looking for informative articles that provide a unique viewpoint while being relatable. In our experience, effective thought leadership uses real-world anecdotes and customer examples to establish credibility and focuses on addressing the challenges and business issues faced by key customers.
Amplification
After content is created and coverage is secured, the work is far from done. A content amplification plan uses paid, owned and earned media channels to optimize visibility and engage target customers moving through the sales funnel. After doing your homework on those key customer personas, evaluate the media channels and strategies that will provide the greatest return on investment and can be easily managed. For example, once a new piece goes live, ensure that corresponding social media has been developed and sales teams are notified to maximize visibility. You may also want to consider sponsored posts.
SEO Optimization
SEO is relatively cost-effective and its benefits are long-lasting in comparison to other digital channels. When done correctly, any effort dedicated to SEO has a lasting impact on a business’s online presence.
However, the SEO environment is constantly changing. Therefore, sustained effort must be applied to ensure that online content is frequently reviewed and optimized according to the latest rules and practices. For example, link building, keyword usage and duplicated content across the internet are all variables that affect page rank and the chance that audiences find and engage with your content.
Data-Driven Metrics
With the plethora of tools and strategies available for digital communications, data-driven metrics are essential for measuring engagement, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and fine-tuning your strategy.
Google Analytics is a go-to tool for analyzing communications efforts, providing website analytics on metrics including total referral traffic, traffic sources, session behavior and goal conversions. These metrics provide further insight into customer touchpoints, which external channels are driving traffic, and the content that best resonates with target audiences.
Stand Out
The digital landscape is a relatively level playing field, ripe with opportunity. Aside from paid media, all of your competitors have access to the same free or low-cost outlets and tools that you do. A strategic digital communications plan is what enables your brand to stand out above the noise. Use the information above to create a plan that will get the attention of key audiences and help you achieve your business objectives.