Some of our clients have separate public relations, content marketing, and linkbuilding efforts, sometimes spearheaded by different people. But some companies need to choose among the options, and the overlap among the three can make that difficult.
- Public relations focuses on developing relationships with reporters and gaining opportunities for press coverage.
- Content marketing focuses on creating content that increases authority and drives traffic to your website.
- Linkbuilding focuses on gaining high quality, natural links to your website in order to increase your website’s authority and drive traffic.
All these things are good. The list is in order of cost — public relations is usually more expensive than linkbuilding. However, especially as search engines become increasingly strict about links, these three tactics have more and more in common.
The image at the top of this post shows the front page of the Tulsa World’s print edition. Getting press of this kind is never a goal for linkbuilding. In this case, however, our client got that because of Kim’s linkbuilding efforts.
The client is a small church pew manufacturer in a small town in Oklahoma. A front page story at the nearest large newspaper can give them an impressive amount of exposure. Kim approached the online version with a picturesque story — our client is a fan of a reality TV show, and he made the family on that program a pew and delivered it to their office — and they liked the idea.
In fact, possibly because the TV show in question has recently been the subject of controversy, the newspaper liked the idea so much that they went with a front page story in both online and print editions.
When opportunities like this come along, we go with it — unless the client has a PR firm, in which case we get the information to their publicist. Equally, clients have us create content for their publicists to use. So which should you choose? Here are some questions to consider:
- How newsworthy are you? A church furniture company rarely will become front page news. A political candidate or a rock band is another kettle of fish. Do a Google news search to get a realistic idea of your newsworthiness.
- How much risk can you afford? A PR firm works hard for the ambitious successes, but if three triumphs a year doesn’t sound like a good return on a hefty investment, you might prefer the small, regular wins of a linkbuilder.
- What kind of content converts best for you? If you’ve had some press coverage and it increased your traffic but not your conversions, don’t let the thrill of publicity sway you to make a less valuable investment. Check your analytics.
Whichever route you choose, make sure to discuss the options with your provider or providers. If you divide your services among agencies, encourage them to work together. And be sure to spread the word through social media to get the most out of your investment — whatever that investment turned out to be.
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