Professionals who have successful digital PR programs operate from a strong foundation. As the state of digital PR survey reveals, thriving professionals are more likely to tie their digital PR strategy to the organisation’s overall business strategy. Of those who consider themselves very effective in digital PR, almost two-thirds (63.19%) have a documented digital PR strategy. And this group is more likely to revisit and update that strategy, which is particularly important in this rapidly evolving tech world. In contrast, of those practitioners who say they are ineffective in digital PR, more than eight in 10 don’t have a documented PR strategy.
If data makes it obvious – if you document your digital PR strategy and align it with your company’s business goals, your program is better positioned for across-the-board success. A documented plan can help you secure financial and intellectual buy-in from executives and your PR team. When they read a well-thought-out strategy, they can better understand the why, what and how of your digital PR program, and execute it more efficiently. Most importantly, they can know what success looks like. And when you have the data to show your digital PR strategy is effective, you have the business case to secure more funding for digital PR in the long term.
How to craft a digital PR strategy
Don’t be overwhelmed at the thought of creating an effective digital PR strategy. Start small: it doesn’t need to tackle every possible opportunity at your company. If you make it realistic and manageable, you’re more likely to achieve success on which to build and grow the strategy. Besides, the process of developing a plan is the same no matter the size of the initiative. Once you’ve done it successfully, you can just repeat the process.
But before you think PR strategy, think about business strategy. Identify your company’s business objectives and goals. Executives usually don’t see merit in supporting a program unless it positively contributes to what the company seeks to achieve.
Define the audience
You need to know who you want to talk to. In addition to the standard demographic and sociographic factors, you should understand your audience’s digital behavior – where do they consume information online, what formats do they prefer, etc. The more you know about your target audience, the more effective your strategy will be.
Determine goals
Once you select your target audience, you can then set a strategic goal. What does your company want this audience to do as a result of seeing and consuming your PR efforts? Do you want to educate them? In which case you might want to set a goal around awareness or perception. Or do you want to inspire them? If so, your goal could be around acceptance or belief. Or would you like your audience to take a specific action?
In setting a goal, you must also identify how it will be measured, so you know if your efforts are working. For example, you can’t state that you want your digital PR outreach to ‘raise awareness of the company’s new product.’ You must be specific and attach numbers, such as ‘to create buzz for our new product, we will secure 25 online mentions from our target media and ten online reviews from our target influencers in the next three months’.
Detail key topics and messaging
Now that you know what you want your digital PR program to accomplish, it’s time to think again about your audience. How will your efforts involve (not interrupt) the audience? What content can your company offer to help or entertain your audience that relates to their daily lives and connects to your strategic PR goal? Compile the list of topics and craft relevant messaging.
Make a distribution plan
Your target audiences have their communication preferences – email, social media platforms, push notifications and so on. They also have their preferred devices – smartwatch, phone, tablet, laptop or desktop. You must communicate with your target audience where they consume digital information. If you don’t, no matter how relevant your messaging is, your audience won’t see it.
Don’t forget to ensure your message reflects the preferred format, length, and tone of the selected digital platform.
Create an editorial calendar
Now that you have the critical components of your strategy, it’s time put together a comprehensive schedule – your day-to-day operating script. With each piece of content scheduled, list the audience, format and distribution method.
Make the editorial calendar even more efficient by providing space for analytics for each piece of content. This will enable you to understand the effectiveness of each outreach effort. These are not necessarily the same as the overall strategy analytics.
Establish a measurement process
One of the biggest selling points of a digital PR strategy, unlike most traditional advertising or marketing efforts, is that it can be more comprehensively measured, which makes it much easier to know if your digital PR efforts have the desired effect. Start by understanding what media measurement categories are most important to your organisation.
Make sure to be as specific as possible in defining what you’re measuring (category) and how (metrics). Recognise that some categories (e.g., total impressions, total reach) are easier to measure than others (e.g., brand perception, return on investment). But don’t pick categories just because they’re easier to measure.
Your chosen measurement methods must be linked intrinsically to your strategic goals. For example, if your digital PR strategic goal is about growing your email subscriber base, metrics like the number of interactions and followers won’t tell you how successful your program is. However, if your goal is related to improving your brand perception, follower and interaction numbers could be helpful metrics but so could third-party surveys.
Use data to evolve the digital PR strategy
Don’t just report the numbers – use the data to advance your digital PR strategy. Make an appointment on your calendar (at least quarterly) to dig into the data on a micro and macro level. It’s critical to see how well the program is achieving its goals, and what tactics are working better than others.
Don’t restrict your analysis to internal numbers. New data and trends will emerge from outside the PR team. Talk to other departments in your organisation to learn about the changes they’re experiencing. Review external sources that speak to trends in your industry and about your audiences.
Use that comprehensive analysis to inform the update of your strategy, expanding on successes and tackling newly discovered obstacles.
Do you want to be more effective in your digital PR efforts? You’re not alone. Get the first part of the digital PR revolution series here and find out what you can do to overcome some of the most common challenges for today’s communicators.
