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B2B digital PR strategy: Four key steps to success

26/09/2019 11:02:53
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In the B2B world, PR typically focuses on achieving media coverage in trade magazines, getting noticed at conferences and exhibitions and winning industry awards. These are all very worthwhile means to enhancing your reputation, building brand awareness, positioning your expert team as thought leaders and helping you to differentiate your business.

Add digital PR into the mix and you can also manage your online reputation, increase your online visibility, track enquiries and increase customer engagement.

How do I implement a digital B2B PR strategy?

A digital PR strategy relies on an effective website which should be at the centre of your digital activity. The content on your website needs to be trusted both by search engines and your website visitors. Google is looking for EAT: Expertise, Authority and Trust – and rewards you with high rankings when you get it right.

To achieve this within your online PR strategy there are four main phases you need to take into consideration: objectives, target audience, content and measuring results.

Objectives

Like any PR or marketing campaign you need to identify objectives from the start.

Digital B2B PR can provide a lot of value to a business and can increase the following:
•    website traffic
•    sales leads
•    SEO value
•    online visibility
•    brand awareness
•    engagement and
•    social following.

Whilst you may want to achieve all these objectives, it’s wise to prioritise and start with just a couple. For example, if you are launching a new product then perhaps you should focus on website traffic and sales enquiries, or if you are looking to become the expert in your field then you should focus on online visibility and brand awareness.

Target audiences

Social media in particular is seen as a low cost marketing tool and businesses often want to be seen on all channels and make the mistake of putting the same content on every channel, thinking they are talking to just one audience.

You must understand who your customer is; what are they searching for, what are their social media and website habits? Audience research should be a thorough and detailed process and as narrow as possible – segmenting your audiences perhaps for different aspects of your business. For example, one of our clients is such a diverse business that they would need 18 different Twitter accounts in order to make the content relevant to each target audience.

By identifying and segmenting your target audience, you can not only determine what content is going to engage them, but also which channels will produce the best results. This in turn allows you to deliver targeted marketing campaigns and focus your finite resources on activities that will produce the best results and ROI.

Content

Quality contentCreating great digital content is your opportunity to differentiate your business from your competitors. It needs to be true to your brand values and corporate identity as well as inspire and engage your target audiences.

Go back to your objectives and think about what you’re trying to achieve with your content - are you offering your audience industry insight that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to or is it simply information on your product range to help them choose the right solution for their needs?

As with all digital content, you need to keep it concise, digestible and engaging, so that readers quickly and easily get the information they want. Stay away from long solid blocks of text, use images, icons and interaction to make it engaging.

All your content should try to answer a need or requirement, and deliver a journey for the reader, with an introduction to capture their attention, a middle that delivers the bulk of the message and an end summary that encourages them to take the next step. Even the best message can be lost if delivered in the wrong way so getting this right is key to achieving the results you want.

Measuring results

Digital B2B PR can be easily measured using tools such as Google Analytics, SEMrush for SEO, domain ranking and PPC etc, and each social media channel offers its own analytics. The key is to tie the reporting back into your original objectives, focus on a small number of key metrics and be adaptable so that you can change things if they are not working.

Measuring your campaigns is essential as it can tell you what has worked, and what has not, whilst helping you identify what needs changing or improving to get the desired results. The tools mentioned above offer a wide array of functions that can monitor, measure and even advise on pretty much all aspects of digital marketing. Just be careful you don’t fall into the trap of measuring for the sake of it; measure what’s important and act on it. With digital marketing it’s best to take an ‘execute – measure – adapt/evolve’ approach to get the results you want.

Follow these four steps when implementing your digital communications strategy and you should be on the way to ensuring that your brand becomes the expert and an authority within the space, that your online visibility increases and that your audience engages with your brand.

Need help with your digital B2B PR strategy? Not sure where to begin? Or do you want help to understand what's working and what isn't?

The Partners Group can help so give us a call when you’re ready to add strategic direction to your online communications.

 

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