You got a media hit, congratulations! There’s nothing like the thrill of seeing your or your company’s name in the news. But a few days later... nothing seems to have changed. What gives?
How you leverage the results of a PR campaign is as important as the campaign results. Who’s seeing the media hit? Who wrote it? Where is it being shared? Can it be used for further coverage?
You can measure the success of a PR campaign and be happy with those results -- but it’s your sales and marketing teams that can make something more of it.
Prospective customers deciding between your company and another, can be swayed by your credibility. Landing on your website or social media and realizing their favourite news outlet once wrote about you may be the clincher.
Here's how to integrate your news coverage from a successful PR campaign into your inbound marketing channels.
Share your hits on social media. Be your own champion
Newspapers can publish hundreds of stories a day, so there’s no guarantee how long your article will be the first thing a reader sees. If you want the right people to see your story, you have to let people know about it..
This is where your marketing team comes in. Share every media hit, every interview, every mention of the company or staff across every channel -- even employees’ accounts if they’re keen. If the objective is to establish credibility, the means is widespread awareness.
When you share hits on social media, are you tagging journalists, the outlet and other relevant parties? Posting the media hit with an insightful sentence or two may get this reshared.
Think of it as a tree diagram. Viral growth through the network effect. Your media hit is at the top. You share it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, through your newsletter, on your website, and you connect with the creator. That’s 6 new channels that can reach new audiences.
Splash your media hits across your website
When you invite guests over to your house, do you put out your finest china and elegant wine glasses, or the tea-stained tablecloth from 10 years ago?
Your website is basically the cyber-home of your company. So put out your finest crockery, stick up some art, and light a candle. Basically, get your media hits up. Dress to impress.
It’s pretty customary now to have an ‘As seen on’ or ‘Featured on’ banner on a homepage, with logos of media outlets. We recommend a minimum of 3 logos to start, but of course, the more the better.
Take this a step further by creating a Press or Media page and linking to each of these wins.
Or why stop at just a link when you can create even more content off of this? Which leads up to...
Leverage your media hits in blog posts
Blog posts aren’t just for your new groundbreaking thoughts, or company announcements. We like to capitalize on our own wins by doing what we call, win blogs.
This is a great way to demonstrate the success of your company, but with added context of your choice.
Choose your favourite excerpts of the media hit, or create a blog post that covers related information that adds to the conversation your hit started. This works to direct more traffic to the media hit, as well as demonstrating the knowledge you have that may not have been included.
Don’t forget the value of internal linking here. Linking from one blog post to another, or to the media hit itself, all adds up to the SEO gods.
Whether you’ve got a list of 20 or 2,000 subscribers, share the good news
A frustration scenario we’ve seen several times, is when companies don’t make the most of the pot of gold in their backyard. A list of subscribers that have actively signed up that never hear about your great success.
Email subscribers are there to hear about your news, your thoughts, and whether or not they know it, your success. Every month, make it a point to include your media hits in your newsletter.
This can take the form of a list of links, or a link to your website’s Press page if you’re feeling more subtle.
Alternatively, use your latest media hits as inspiration to write a newsletter introduction, and link to the hit within that.
Contact our Vancouver PR firm to start earning the media hits that can help grow your business.