Recently, I listened to the CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation tell me about his company’s profit and loss; and I realized that he considered marketing, sales and PR — all of it — as a single line item.
In this man’s mind, anything driving new business belonged in just one single category.
I can understand how that might seem logical; however, when you look at these separate operations as a joint function, you can’t really see how one affects the other. In fact, they are complementary; so lumping them together makes it hard to understand how to maximize those investments.
What’s more, if you don’t think about the symbiotic nature of your various outsourced functions, you could be wasting money on ineffective initiatives.
How critical is it to capitalize on your PR team’s earned media in your digital marketing? If the 2016 presidential election was any indicator, it’s your best bet for generating awareness and leads. Aside from the polling inaccuracies, Donald Trump’s victory surprised so many people because he spent less on advertising than any other candidate.
He made up for those unspent ad dollars by earning more free media than any other candidate — nearly $2 billion over the course of his run.
The truth is, you need PR and digital marketing to accomplish certain goals. But it’s up to you to make sure those efforts are aligned.
Wrapping your head around the symbiosis
Many people who start businesses are “product” people or “finance” people and don’t necessarily have marketing backgrounds. If you find the whole marketing landscape confusing, you’ll likely outsource it without fully recognizing all the nuances involved in attracting customers and keeping them happy.
Say you have $10,000 — which function should you invest in? If you have to ask that question, you may not yet realize that they are not interchangeable. The answer is both; it’s the combination of PR and marketing that drives growth. And, yes, both are possible to do, even on a limited budget.
How to boost your digital marketing with PR
Articles and stories will often give your product a spin you didn’t anticipate and might just set you up for exponential returns. To get the most bang for your buck, use PR as a launchpad for digital marketing:
1. Make sure the right hand knows what the left is doing. The biggest hurdle to overcome is that sometimes one…