16
Sep
Ask any PR guru and they will tell you one of the biggest problems with press releases is tracking conversions - in other words attributing a given activity directly to the release.
Historically PR has been regarded as an activity that falls outside the domain of marketing. This flawed approach has only been overcome in the last decade or so, during which time companies have begun to see how PR and traditional marketing activities should work in unison.
internet marketing; the place in which PR and marketing become so intertwined as to be almost inseparable
Perhaps the biggest reason for this merging is the growth of internet marketing; the place in which PR and marketing become so intertwined as to be almost inseparable.
Nevertheless, the infrastructure of the web and the different nature of consumerism online bring unique challenges which must be approached with an unconventional strategy.
Several hundred years ago the world gave birth to the printing press and in so doing, for better or worse also came the newspaper. For a monochrome, 2D, low resolution medium the de facto method of grabbing attention became the headline. It’s no different today. The average news stand has a seemingly infinite number of papers and magazines, each vying for your attention.
Print has always used the headline; ergo the goal of the journalist is to produce eye-catching, clever headlines which, in an instant, turn that casual glance into an insatiable need to find out more…. and hence, make you part with your money.
A computer algorithm can’t unpick the nuance of a metaphorical headline.
The human brain has a limitless capacity to invoke symbols and images, play with metaphor, debate irony, double entendre and the word play. This offers the average journalist an enormous catalogue of potential when crafting those wonderful headlines. On the web things are very different. Very different indeed.
It’s ironic the word we have chosen to describe our use of the web - ‘browsing’, tends to be the exact opposite of what we actually do. Aside from the odd moment of boredom in which we find ourselves aimlessly clicking, in the main we use the web in a very directed way. The reason for this is simple - the search engine.
Search engine’s are how we find things on the world wide web. So ubiquitous in nature that in a survey asking - What is the world wide web? Not surprisingly many respondents simply replied - ‘Google’.
A search engine is a gateway to a vast archive of web pages which have been diligently categorised and cross referenced using some very complex math. That’s right, the location of your website in a Google results page in comparison to your competitor, is not a function of your product quality and customer service reputation - it’s to do with words.
The best web copy, and search engine optimisation (SEO) guides will tell you to write for humans first, computers second - and they’re right.
This is taking the simplest of views but at its essence, it’s basically true. A computer algorithm can’t unpick the nuance of a metaphorical headline. It has no understanding of the fact that when you say things like ‘tough as a lion’ or ‘soft as a kitten’ you don’t in fact sell or deal in animals. It’s a hideous notion but we’re no longer just writing for humans, we have to do it for computers also.
The best web copy, and search engine optimisation (SEO) guides will tell you to write for humans first, computers second - and they’re right. If you write something that is torture for a human to read, it really doesn’t matter how much a computer likes it. Nevertheless, it’s become crucial that the guys writing your online PR are either the same as the guys who build and maintain your online marketing strategy, or at the very least you choose a PR agency with a very firm grasp on the architecture and operation of the internet.
The argument for a combined agency effort becomes even more one sided when you start to speak in terms of conversion and tracking. The online world has a wealth of sophisticated tools, designed to integrate with your website to accurately track usage patterns. These patterns have become lovingly known as analytics, and they are the digital equivalent of footprints in the sand.
At no other point in history has a company had the ability to track customer, and potential customer activity in such a fine grained way.
At no other point in history has a company had the ability to track customer, and potential customer activity in such a fine grained way. In addition to the detail of the tracking, is the cross channel trail of bread crumbs that can be followed, to further profile customer behaviour.
Just a few years ago if somebody phoned your company from an advert in the Yellow Pages you had two ways of knowing how they found out about you - channel specific telephone numbers or ask ‘em.
The web does not require such a blunt instrument approach. Truly integrated multi-channel marketing - via email, websites, micro-sites, social media, pay-per-click advertising, affiliate marketing, viral marketing and PR can now be achieved, and more importantly reliably tracked, like never before.
When talking to your web design agency, don’t get caught up on ‘search engine optimisation’ as a panacea.
When talking to your web design agency, don’t get caught up on ‘search engine optimisation’ as a panacea. Search engine optimisation - the collection of tips, tricks and tools to push your website up the search engine rankings is losing its reputation as a reliable means of achieving long term success. Sure, there are practices which should form part of the online marketing strategy but the firms you should be listening to will talk about - search engine marketing.
Search engine marketing is more about the combination of all of the tools and techniques being focussed toward measurable goals. “But our design agency said without search engine optimisation our website would not rank, what do we do?” Can you envisage a scenario in which the density and proximity of the words ‘low cost, high quality’ would have any tangible effect on the impact of a direct mail campaign? Probably not. So why have we become so fixated on this being the case online?
The answer to that question lies in the misguided notion that search engine algorithms are the guardians of context and there’s nothing you can do about it. Whilst it’s true to say search engine indexing algorithms might get the final say on which keywords a site ranks for, and how height it ranks - the fact remains humans drive the process.
Whilst it’s true to say search engine indexing algorithms might get the final say on which keywords a site ranks for, and how height it ranks - the fact remains humans drive the process.
If ‘Cash is King’ in the world of business, ‘Content is King’ is in the online world. A lazy approach to online marketing - no pay-per-click, no blogging or news platform, no press releases, no website updates and generally no content of any interest to anybody will get you exactly what you deserve - a piss poor ranking*.
This is not a function of a mathematical algorithm, or a computer having a bad day. This is the world ignoring you because you have nothing interesting to tell them.
If you want to rank well, attract new customers, maintain customer loyalty and demonstrate commitment to your online brand you have to jump head first into a planned, sustained and measurable marketing strategy.
Choose someone who is going to see the whole board, and not just a few squares.
When you decide to make the leap be sure you choose a partner who understands how to craft online copy, how to interpret analytics data, how to adjust your website landing pages to co-ordinate seamlessly with your email marketing campaign, how to tailor your pay per click campaign to cope with seasonal sales shifts, how to track back inbound links via your press releases and ensure the highest earners are consistently targeted - in other words, choose someone who is going to see the whole board, and not just a few squares.
For details of what’s involved in online PR and how you might benefit check out - Online PR from evodesign.
* - This is true in the majority of areas in which competition exists. If you’re talking about something so mind-blowingly unique it’s never been seen, or your product is called a Flibothoram you will probably rank first regardless of how crap you online strategy. However, given the thing you’re talking about has never been heard of and it’s name is so obscure as to be borderline unpronounceable - a compelling online marketing strategy is probably the least of your worries.