A digital PR strategy is a proven tactic to increase awareness of a brand online, and when done right, it can be one of the most cost-effective ways to promote a business at scale. 

We find that the most successful brands are those that look beyond SEO and paid ads. It’s usually the ones who’ve invested in strong storytelling through PR who come out top in the long run.

Digital PR offers numerous benefits, such as acquiring links, increasing traffic, influencing purchases, reputation management, consumer engagement, and more! All of these benefits work together to help grow and widen the reach of a business online. But in this blog, we will run through some of the ways digital PR can help boost a brand’s awareness and get in front of the audience that matters. 

Digital PR helps brands tell their stories 

PR is storytelling, and every business has its fair share of stories to tell. From behind-the-scenes glimpses of a new product, to how the business started, there will be a hook or angle to find. 

Whether the story is packaged as a press release, thought leadership article, case study or Q&A, there needs to be a purpose to the story. PR professionals ensure that the story told is relevant and adds value to the brand’s customers, and/or the media’s audience. Does it engage, advise, or entertain the readers? Will it provoke a feeling or reaction?

Sometimes PR professionals need to dip into their toolbox and edit their style of writing to reflect the media they are targeting. The story needs to be told in a journalistic style to hit national, trade, or regional media. PRs need to make life as easy as possible for journalists and editors, so the closer the story is to the media’s style of writing, the better it is. 

Digital PR establishes brand authority 

PR helps brands look authoritative and be seen as thought leaders in their industry or sector. This is done by creating interesting content that establishes the business as an expert in their field of expertise. 

We recently wrote about ‘becoming agile and adaptable to survive in the hospitality sector’ for our client Eat17. This is an advice piece targeting Eat17’s peers and competitors, and it positions Eat17 as leaders in hospitality which resulted in coverage in the Retail Times. 

Publishing high-quality PR articles like this on relevant and authoritative sites will improve a brand's reputation by showcasing them as a credible source of information. PR effectively conveys a brand’s innovative, forward-thinking ideas. 

Using this PR tactic, a brand is mentioned much more frequently in front of a relevant target audience, which may generate leads from some of the people who read the coverage and visit the website.

This improved trust in your brand is also great from an SEO perspective and often an increase in strong editorial coverage and links is reflected in the search engine results page. 

Digital PR builds relationships 

Creating an interesting and authentic story often builds trust and genuine relationships with the media, their readers, and key customers. 

If the brand is reputable and the story is strong, then stakeholders, key audiences, and more will be reading, engaging, and supporting the content.

These relationships build brand loyalty. We often see our coverage do the rounds on social media, generating engagement from communities who care and are interested in the brand.

Digital PR helps reach new audiences

When issuing a story, a PR professional will prospect multiple relevant media. If the story gets picked up by multiple media (and this is likely to happen) then the reach of a brand mention can go far!

For example, we recently issued a story that got picked up by 129 different regional media titles. The monthly online readership of these regionals sits at 41.7million. Estimated monthly views are useful to see how popular a publication is, but a more useful figure is working out how many people are likely to see the coverage. In this case, that’s 235,000, which means that almost a quarter of a million eyes saw a brand mention.

At the end of the day, businesses that include digital PR as part of their marketing strategy will get ahead of the game when it comes to improving their brand awareness and online presence. You can learn more about our approach to digital PR here.