There is no doubt that the pandemic has had a major impact on our personal and professional relationships. From meeting our friends and relatives to conducting business with our customers and vendors, everything has changed.
One noticeable change has been in the area of communications, PR and marketing efforts of brands. While big brands have major financial resources to push the same through hoardings, advertisements, and newspaper ads, small brands fall behind.
This is where Digital PR can come in very handy to communicate with audiences. In this article, we will look at some of the advantages of pursuing Digital PR for small brands. However, before we do, let us first look at what does the term means in itself.
Digital PR: Meaning and Definition
Many of you might be wondering what is digital PR? Well to put it in simple words, it refers to a marketing strategy, pursued in online or digital platforms by brands. This means placing content in front of target audiences, using social media actively, and seeding press releases to different forums and local communities.
When it comes to digital PR, small brands are able to level the playing field with bigger businesses. This is because the right and most effective digital PR focusses on local promotions, within local communities and audiences.
One important element of digital PR is focussing on SEO. Whenever you seed your brand content to a local website or blog, you would want to gain backlinks from them. This would help in improving your search performance, add to website traffic, and generate sales and revenues.
5 Advantages of Digital PR for Small Brands
1. Gaining Exposure and Visibility
The first advantage of Digital PR is announcing to the world that a brand like yours exists. This becomes all the more important in a post-Coronavirus world when many small businesses have shut down operations or have started working with new guidelines. Digital PR can help you put the word out there that your business has resumed and is open for customers.
2. Improving performance on Search Engines
As we have already mentioned, the best digital PR strategies help you gain quality backlinks, thereby improving your search performances. To this end, strategies like Guest Posting, Blogger Outreach, and Link Building can be favorable to pursue. This will not only help you gain backlinks but also allow you to get website traffic for your small business.
3. Increase Sales and Revenues
If you think Digital PR can only guarantee exposure and branding, think again. Specialized agencies that offer digital PR use the different social media channels to increase direct sales and revenues for the brand. This includes setting up stores on Facebook and other digital platforms, shooting product images, and leading people straight to your brand website.
4. Builds Trust and Credibility
Digital PR is all about establishing trust and credibility in the community. This is why working with local bloggers, publishers, and community forums are essential. If members of the local community are able to send in their reviews for your product or service, it will add to your trust factor in a major fashion. This will help you build long term customer relationships.
5. Create Long-Lasting Relationships
Digital PR helps to cement long-lasting relationships on two fronts- with the customer and with the promoters. In other words, your promoters are your community bloggers, digital newspapers, forums, local review sites, and social media influencers. If you maintain good relationships, you will start seeing favorable results and mentions from them over time.
The Final Word
Small brands think that Digital PR is something, which is very expensive and beyond their reach. However, when you compare the same with traditional models of PR, you will see that it just costs a fraction. Do you think digital PR is something, small brands should pursue? Let us know in the comments section below.