When approached with a brief for ‘traditional PR’, ‘brand PR’ or ‘Digital PR’, the process we undergo is largely the same… PR fundamentally, is PR, the development of the strategy and the approach are all rooted in creating news and stories that travel across the media.
The purpose of this guide is to outline what has come to be of the definitions between ‘traditional PR’ or ‘brand PR’ and how this differs from ‘Digital PR’, which can also take the guise of ‘link building’ or ‘online PR’. Lots of names for much of the same thing…
Essentially, all of the disciplines first and foremost are tasked with earning press coverage and creating positive perceptions of a business between the brand and customers.
When we think of the media and their readers, many of us will default to what we know – local news sites, tabloid red tops and broadsheets. But press comes in many forms and news is delivered to audiences across different types of sites – some of which we define as ‘non-traditional media’, business’ blog pages, council newsletters, university blogs etc etc.
The challenge is that the latter doesn’t come with the ‘glitz and glamour’ of the typical red tops. Though for many businesses, coverage in these areas is the pinnacle and places them directly in front of an engaged customer. Typically, this may be seen as leaning more into ‘link building’, ‘digital pr’ or ‘online pr’ and not considered in ‘brand pr’ or ‘traditional pr’. We think that to differentiate all of this activity based on the target is wrong.
Across all of these terms, the output is creative and generally about producing stories that resonate with people and as a result earn press coverage.
The way we measure PR has changed over the years, largely driven by the value it can bring and the changing media landscape. PR has naturally developed to earn coverage predominantly online. Links earned from one site to another benefit the organic performance of a site on the receiving end and so ‘digital pr’, ‘online pr’ and ‘link building’ was born – and as a channel, sits in the hands of SEOs.
For the other half, ‘traditional’ and ‘brand PR’, the activity maintains as a brand builder, sitting with PR and marketing teams, but solid, consistent and standard measurement here lacks.
When we consider the output across all of these channels, there’s multiple tactics. A good ‘PR’ team, however you want to preface it, should be selecting the tactics best suited to achieve your objectives. They should also be measuring organic search impact and brand impact. PR is the answer to achieving all of these objectives and a good PR team should answer all of these questions and challenges, not just one or the other.
SEO has long disconnected and siloed from brand, and more often than it should, so has ‘digital pr’, ‘online pr’ and ‘link building’. But it shouldn’t. Often, there’s a real breakdown in businesses between SEO, marketing, social, influencer, brand and comms teams, and the lynchpin to bring them all together is good PR. Employing a PR agency should come from a combined brief across all of these teams, because ultimately it impacts the full performance spectrum and feeds into multiple drivers. If we continue to silo PR within businesses we start to see weight placed in different areas of impact and this is where we see the growth of one-dimensional strategies that fit into the many, many names given to PR.
While it shouldn’t be the case in our opinion, there are currently differences considered when it comes to the types of activity, why it’s utilised and how the impact of results is measured:
The activity & measurement
Fundamentally, all activity within any proactive PR strategy has to be sharable, newsworthy, and have human interest. Press coverage builds brand and affinity, it is also a way for businesses to talk and own issues that are important to them and their customers.
The outcome or at least the expected outcome of the activity may differ depending on the ‘type’ of PR. In traditional or brand PR, strategies will largely aim for coverage that communicates key messaging or explicitly references a key initiative, service or new offering. The coverage can be earned across print, online and broadcast media. Its success is measured on brand mentions, reach, sentiment, and clarity of the key messaging and in the titles it lands coverage. Its value is dictated by what it may have cost to pay for the piece – historically Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) was the metric used here.
Digital PR has the same goals but rather than being treated largely as a communication arm for key messaging within a marketing strategy, it’s leveraged as part of an SEO strategy. SEO strategies have three pillars; content, tech and authority. Digital PR fulfils the authority requirement by earning links back to a target site through press coverage – press titles are naturally authoritative, and links from them are valuable in passing much-needed authority signals to support the organic visibility of a website.
To encourage a link back to a target website, Digital PR activity generally needs a supporting ‘asset’ hosted on the target site. This asset provides additional insight and content, offering journalists a reason to link to it. Once a link is earned, its impact along with subsequent links, can be measured through the effect it has has on rankings, traffic, impressions and revenue. It’s here where the key difference lies in the main goal of the activity and how it’s measured.
Experience, expertise, authority and trust
One core principle of PR is to build individual profiles within a business, increasing the authority businesses have in a field by leveraging the expertise within to secure press coverage. A consideration as part of any successful SEO strategy is how a site communicates its EEAT credentials and how it can garner trust. PR in any guise is key to achieving that and when considered as part of a wider SEO strategy, where the goal is to drive value to a site – these signals are even more important.
Should you invest in traditional PR or digital PR?
First, you must establish the key objectives of the activity and how you want its impact to be measured and demonstrated. We’re firm believers that PR is PR and your ‘traditional PR’, ‘brand PR’, ‘digital PR’ or ‘online PR’ team should all be working from the same foundations and knowledge of effective communications.
We know that all of these strategies will be vying for press coverage and for the most part, there’s no reason why these activities cannot also be leveraged to impact channels like SEO, except for potential barriers related to understanding or integration.
The skills of all teams should be the same and knowledge and understanding of the PR spectrum should also be present in whichever guise of PR you invest in. When considering the objectives, you may opt to go down a more ‘traditional’ route if you have, for example, an event to plan to launch a new bar. Traditional PR teams may be better equipped here to support where nuances in experience and skill will be important to reaching success.
Conversely, if you’re within an SEO team and your goal is solely to increase organic visibility, a dedicated Digital PR team will be more effective, owing to the demonstrable experience of building strategies to influence an SEO strategy.
Impression’s Approach
We’re a team made up of ex-journalists, traditional PRs and SEOs. We understand the spectrum of PR and our approach will work to deliver against a key business objective, where PR is the channel to drive value and impact, whether this is through communicating key messaging to driving authority to support an SEO strategy.
Our approach works to fulfil both of these requirements – not neglecting one for another. If you’re considering investing in Digital PR and you already pay for ‘traditional PR’, you should consider how you can make your budget work harder and how you can ensure value is driven across the spectrum from one well-thought-out and effective strategy.
We did exactly this for our client, Marmalade, fulfilling both its ‘traditional pr’, ‘brand pr’ and ‘digital pr’ requirements within one effective and comprehensive strategy. You can read the full case study here along with an in-depth campaign example here.
