Marketers understand that multiple impressions are required to close a sale, but in an age when consumers can turn off the volume or skip the ads entirely, more is not always more. Synergies, not repetition, produce large payoffs.
Many of these are self-explanatory. The more mentions or clicks a website receives, the higher its SEO score, putting it higher on the search results list. This increases interest in the brand and, consequently, more news about it.
Many advantages, on the other hand, are more ethereal. When a brand appears on the main pages of a news website in a non-advertising manner, its message is organically reinforced, establishing credibility among readers and consumers. For example, a staffing firm’s owner may pay Google for each ad click as a potential lead generator. Still, they will also want to be quoted as a thought leader in news articles about The Great Resignation or bylined in a guest piece where they can share advice on resolving critical, trending human resource issues.
The roles of thought leader, influencer, advertiser, and business owner or executive overlap. Public relations and marketing, in general, are following suit. They don’t just want to know who we’re doing business with; we also expect them to earn our trust. They want their values to match because everyone wants to be satisfied with how they spend their time and money. As brand builders, we must always incorporate multiple channels of communication.
How PR and Marketing Strategies Interact
Pr, media relations, and marketing all have the same end goal: to get a specific demographic to pay attention to and internalize a message. The message becomes more focused as the targeted demographic becomes more niche, making it easier to capture the audience’s attention and have them internalize the desired message.
Days are gone when a brand could hire a celebrity to make a television commercial and expect its young fans to align with its messaging. The younger generation of consumers chooses their influencers and expects them to reflect their personal values.
This doesn’t mean that paid marketing spots are going away — Netflix recently announced its plan to incorporate ads — but it does mean that publicity and advertising must be aligned to communicate a coherent message effectively.