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MARKETING: Making the Internet work for your public relations
By David L. Rawle
How has the Internet affected public relations? Significantly. The Internet is now the No. 1 choice for news in the 18 to 54 age group. And virtually all journalists (92%) start their article research online.
So, if you’re not aggressively using the interactive environment in your public relations activities, you are really missing the boat.
Here are just a couple of the ways successful public relations firms are serving their clients through pro-active, creative use of the Internet. We regularly use these, and many more, at Rawle Murdy.
Optimizing news releases. Public relations professionals used to be measured on how many releases they got out, how many calls they made, and how many placements they got. But even getting a placement doesn’t guarantee that anyone will see it, or that the people seeing it are the people you want to reach.
The Old World was about putting stuff out. The New World is about picking stuff up.
The key to getting your news read is to get it highly placed in search engines and tied to the key words that will attract precisely your target audience.
When you do that, you not only reach your target, but you reach them in a clearly measurable way. And that produces results.
Obviously, in the interactive environment as well as in all environments, your release must be newsworthy to be picked up. Beyond that, it should be optimized according to the algorithms of Google and Yahoo! News engine rules differ from the natural or organic search engine algorithms.
Writing releases for the Internet is different, and it’s important to understand the differences.
For example, you’ll want to be using the key words that will get picked up by the search engine “spiders” and give you the placement you want, appealing to the target audience you seek to reach.
Beyond that, it’s important to include links, so that readers can land on your Web site. And be certain that your site can accommodate the traffic it will get and handle it appropriately. According to Penn State research, most Web sites lose more than 60% of their traffic off the first page because of usability and content issues.
When appropriate, include images, in hopes that your release will get picked up and displayed on either Google or Yahoo! news.
Monitoring News Groups. Chances are that there are several online news groups of interest to your company. And there are many relevant weblogs, or blogs. Today’s professional public relations company should be monitoring those sites for you and making certain that your company and your viewpoint are properly represented.
Many companies themselves—like Disney—are empowering their employees to establish blogs and scan others in search of opportunities to proselytize the company’s point of view.
Aggressive, creative use of the Internet for public relations is not a choice in today’s environment. It is a necessity.
And it needs to go hand-in-hand with more traditional communications, because each one greatly enhances the other.
Consider, for example, the extent to which online marketing affects offline sales. A recent study showed that the Internet influences 70% more sales offline than it does online. And Internet-influenced offline spending is now growing faster than direct online spending.
The online and offline environments are now inextricably connected, and the incredible power of the online environment is more relevant than ever in the world of public relations.
David L. Rawle (drawle@rawle
murdy.com) is chairman of Charleston-based Rawle Murdy Associates Inc., a marketing, advertising and public relations firm.
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