Studies have shown that 65% of consumers are fully prepared to drop a brand from their lives if it takes a wrongful or silent stance on an important global issue. This is a staggering statistic and one that can only be amended through adequate public relations handling.
Your company’s PR department goes through the same trials and tribulations on the other side of the spectrum, often relying on content from the marketing strategy to formulate their messages.
However, these two departments can cooperate more closely and to for much better results. Let’s take a look at why and how you can combine your content marketing strategy with the public relations sector in your company.
Reasons to combine content marketing and PR
Before we get into it, let’s take a look at why you should strive to combine content marketing and PR.
After all, there should be concrete benefits in doing so. Otherwise, the entire ordeal is only going to make things more complicated for you:
1. Consistent messages
PR departments that work closely with their content marketing and creation experts in-house are prone to deliver clearer and more direct messages. According to Neil Patel, PR and content marketing represent “an inevitable marriage” that eventually comes to fruition in every company.
It is also worth pointing out that PR and content marketing combined deliver a much clearer image of a brand to the public. They do this from two different yet related perspectives in order to ensure a cohesive company image for all stakeholders.
2. Better SEO with Google
Both PR and content marketing departments can and should implement SEO in their creation processes. Tools such as Adwords can help unify any content which these two departments create.
Even if they work independently, a combined SEO optimization can help elevate your site to better ranking through search engine algorithms. This results in a much higher traffic and conversion rates regardless of the niche you operate in.
3. Brand outreach and networking
Lastly, the combined efforts of PR and content marketing departments can increase the mass appeal of your brand across the board. Investors, partners and customers loom on the horizon and wait to be impressed by brands around the world.
Microsoft’s “Stories” program aims to humanize their employees and approach new audiences through familiar blog topics and activities. This has proven to be a successful tactic since the tech giant is already present in the majority of households on the global level.
You can achieve a very high quality of outreach and network with a lot of prolific stakeholders through your PR department if the content marketing backs it up.
This will be beneficial for your brand’s reputation and financial stability, giving you access to new corporate relations, business opportunities and customer bases.
i. Set achievable goals
A good way to start the partnership of content marketing and PR is to set concrete goals in stone before anything else. Even though you intend to combine these two elements for the foreseeable future, certain KPIs will help you stay on track.
For example, you can set your goals as the number of clients attracted or the percentage of revenue raised in comparison to the previous calendar year. What’s important to note about KPIs is that they should always represent numeric, attainable goals with set deadlines.
Using a goal-setting system such as SMART will allow you to set very appealing and motivating goals for both your departments to share and track together.
ii. Parallel content creation
PR statements and marketing content have a lot in common – that is why they can be created in the same room for added effect. The two departments can combine their efforts and let the content “bleed into” one another seamlessly.
For example, a marketing content piece can allude to the message the PR department is trying to convey. Similarly, the PR representatives can interlace the current content marketing campaign going on in order to get more public eyes on it.
Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign effectively combined their PR strategy with content marketing, resulting in an amazing public response.
It can be good practice to translate and localize your PR and marketing content if your brand is international. Platforms such as The Word Point are a great choice for content translation, which can elevate your public relations and marketing game to the next level.
Regardless of whether you translate your content or not, it can and should be interconnected between PR and content marketing.
iii. Unified public image
While the content these departments create should be on the same level, the same applies for the message they are trying to deliver. The public image your brand enjoys will depend solely on the success of your marketing and PR departments. It is crucial that they are on the same page when it comes to your mission statements, long-term company goals and above all else – brand values.
McDonald’s is one of the most popular fast food brands in the world – even though most people don’t know what goes into their food. They aimed to address this in one of their PR marketing campaigns and strived to reassure the public of the quality of their ingredients. The result was a resounding success and even though there will always be naysayers around, McDonald’s managed to elevate their reputation through careful PR and effective marketing messages.
You can do the same with your brand if you effectively unify the two departments for each successive campaign. After all, there is no point in their independent operations if the other department or the brand as a whole suffers due to internal misalignment of content and goals.
Best of both worlds (Conclusion)
In the end, it’s important to note that PR and content marketing can work side-by-side and evolve constantly. There is no need for one to back down over the other and suffer for it. An effective management of both departments can bring out the best in both aspects.
Your brand’s reputation and longevity is on the line for PR and marketing alike. Finding common ground in those regards shouldn’t be difficult given the nature of their operations. Establish a line of communication between the two teams and give them ample opportunity to showcase their cooperation in your public marketing campaigns.
Erica Sunarjo graduated from South Texas College majoring in Marketing and Creative Writing. She used her knowledge to make a difference in the realm of business copywriting and invested heavily in traveling and language learning. At present, Erica is fluent in French and
Spanish, studying Chinese and working her way to being a multilingual copywriter. She keeps track of the latest trends in IT and technologies, blogs about efficient strategies in education and business coaching, holds educational webinars. Right now Erica is the most effective writer at The Word Point.
