You’ve heard the expression ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’ It is true for your communications, which should include both PR and content strategy.
An ideal communication strategy strives to incorporate all channels to get the attention of stakeholders. This includes using the following types of media: Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned or the PESO Method.
PR and content strategy both serve unique and useful purposes for you, work well together, and as a result create greater Roi. Here is how:
PR is Earned media and Content Marketing is Owned Media.
Your content strategy can consist of your website, blog posts, articles, and social media. It gives you a chance to communicate with your audience and share ideas and topics that matter to them. It is also a chance to educate and inform about your brand.
Using the right keywords in your content can help your ideal prospects find you, based on topics, solutions, and products they are already searching for. Your owned media is a key component of your communication strategy as you get to tell your story and craft your communication and messaging your way. You have full control over your content.
Your owned media gives you a chance to communicate directly with your audience, exactly as you choose to, as often as you choose to.
Publicity is referred to as earned media, as it is something that you have to work to garner. With PR, while you have less control over your messaging – the media has the final say on what they write, it is the most desirable form of communication. Getting mentioned or featured in the media gives you free visibility in front of an audience outside your own.
Being written about in the media gives the reader, viewer or listener the impression your brand is endorsed by the media [though technically it is not]. You get a positive boost to your brand by being associated with the media outlet. Think of it as a 5-star review on Yelp or another online platform.
Unlike your owned media, you don’t get to decide when, where, or how often you get publicity. What you can do is be strategic in the media outlets you target and have a consistent media outreach plan.
How Your PR and Content Strategy Work Well Together:
Your owned and earned media complement and lift each other. Consumers are suspicious and less trusting of what you say about your brand, products, and services. They do trust the media. Publicity provides third party credibility to your brand. It also provides authority positioning; someone else, the media, citing you as an expert or talking about your product.
Your earned media makes for great content. You amplify the value of the publicity you get when you share it with your audience.
The benefits of having both owned and earned media are that they [can] help you get more publicity. When a journalist googles you to see if you are a credible source, they will see the content you have put out, as well as any media coverage you have gotten. Together they paint a stronger picture and make you more attractive to the media as a credible source.
For prospects who discover your brand after reading about it in the media, the content you have created will help them learn more about your brand and will be taken more seriously. Your credibility has already been established for them by the media.