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Three stages to launching your Digital PR campaign

By David Beesley

An effective Digital PR Strategy can bring great benefits to your business but if your initial campaign stages are not thought out and well-planned, you are more than likely setting yourself up for failure.

In this blog we highlight the first three steps of launching of an effective Digital PR campaign and tell you why each step is necessary and what each phase will entail.

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1. Know your business objectives

The first step of your Digital PR campaign should be to focus on why you've chosen to engage PR and the impact it will have on your business objectives. How does the campaign tie into your business plan and strategy? Knowing this and being able to articulate it will ensure everyone remains focused and that everything is aimed at meeting the set objectives.

It is also important to ensure that your objectives are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound), as this will allow you to evaluate the success of the campaign. An example of this can be “To increase website traffic by 50% in 12 months” or “Increase our leads by 25% over the next quarter”.

 

2. Know who you’re speaking to

Your target audience and publications are key driving forces to the success of the Digital PR strategy – the more publications you are featured in, the more people you’ll reach and the higher the chance of turning website visits into leads.

Knowing who exactly will be interested in your content, both in terms of publications and readers, is important and will save you from drafting and sharing content in a scatter gun approach.

Work with your Digital PR team to create a list of VIP, tier A and tier B publications that are directly linked to your company/services. This list should be based upon topics and technologies that the publication covers, the readership, domain authority and whether they insert follow links into their articles.

Knowing the value each publication and subsequent piece of coverage will allow you to think strategically when placing content, increasing your chances of your content being published due to the relevancy of the copy to its readers.

 

3. Know what you want to talk about

Last but not least, having the key messages of the campaign agreed; any announcements or product launches planned in; and thought leadership topics to showcase the different areas of expertise will not only allow your PR partner to make sure that they have the necessary resources, but will give you enough time to consider points one and two above.

Good content will tie in the company messaging and support some (or all) of the objectives/goals, whilst being relevant to your target publications and their readers.

Consider mapping out a content plan or editorial calendar in the beginning stages of the Digital PR strategy to make sure you remain on track, working towards your objectives and catering for your audience.

Plus, it’s your way of getting a slight insight into the progression the of campaign – and who doesn’t want to be able to see into the future!

Interested in finding out how kick start your content pipeline off? Head over to our “How to write for the media” eBook using the link below.

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Tags: Digital PR