The Ultimate Guide To Content Marketing & Digital PR

Chapter 1

Overview

Most marketing spend is supposed to pay off, but with digital PR it's often hard to see what you're getting back. Without a clear way to judge it, effort goes in every direction, goals get fuzzy, and no one can tell what's working or what to change.

Digital PR is marketing, and marketing has to bring in more than it costs. Most businesses can't say whether it does, because they never track the numbers. So there are three things to do: figure out where the business stands today, set clear goals, and check and adjust the campaign as it runs.

Metrics of success

• Sales, which every business tracks. The best way to measure them is through tools like Google Analytics or call-tracking numbers, not by asking leads where they found you.
• Website traffic, which only means something alongside how many visitors buy and how many leave right away. If few visitors buy, the traffic is unqualified or the site is poor. The top organic result takes over 30% of clicks, according to the book.
• Authority, measured by domain authority, or DA. It's scored one to a hundred, based on a site's age, size and popularity.
• Influence, measured by Klout score, also one to a hundred.
• Brand trust, built through reviews and coverage in high-authority publications. It lifts sales and supports higher prices.

SMARTer goals

Goals must be Specific, Measurable, Agreed on, Realistic and Time-bound. Break long goals into short stages and review each one: if traffic hasn't grown 2.5% by week three, rethink the strategy.

Example goals

Direct sales start from current and projected sales, seasonal factors, a target and a deadline. Sales come from traffic multiplied by how many visitors buy, and expensive items can sell even when few visitors buy. Digital PR mainly drives traffic through keyword-rich content, paid advertising, relevant publications, blogger outreach and social campaigns.

Authority: the expertise a business finds obvious is not obvious to its market. DA rests on age, size and popularity. Age comes with time; size from original, engaging pages; popularity from links earned by placing articles where the audience reads.

A blog builds brand, links and SEO value, tracked by blog traffic, subscribers, clicks and shares.

A blog goal can be a number of new leads per month against a set quantity of content. Writing posts on a topic while doing outreach about it is efficient, producing a writing sample to show publishers from research already done.

Gain followers and influence them

Social media rarely closes direct sales. It's where customers are engaged until some become advocates who tweet, like and share on a business's behalf. A goal might be moving a Klout score from one number to another by a set date. Klout tracks across several networks and measures engagement rather than activity. Platforms reward engagement: profiles that draw responses gain visibility and those that draw none lose it, so weak self-promotion shrinks the reach of later posts while content that spreads lifts an occasional promotional one. Reaching the goal takes strong profiles where customers are and shareable content, not product shots and invitations to visit a website. A companion book covers the detail, and regular review keeps the effort pointed at what works.

Create an email database

Most underperforming sites offer visitors one action, buy now, which leaves anyone still researching with nothing to do. High-performing sites sort visitors by willingness to buy and give the not-yet-ready a free guide or sample in exchange for an email address, so they can be marketed to later. Emails make it easy to reach people who were once interested. The goal is a set number of signups, and the test is what the visitor gets, since a newsletter signup persuades almost nobody. Giveaways work: run a competition and hand sought-after products to a few winners in return for entrants' addresses, social media included. Rafflecopter gets one online in minutes. If products are too costly early on, give information instead. An HR software company can run webinars on HR topics and collect addresses for free places.

Key Takeaways

• Track before you spend. Conversion tracking or call-tracking numbers will show what a campaign returns, and traffic volume only means something when read beside how many visitors buy and how many leave.
• Set goals that name a number, a deadline and the people who have agreed to them, then review in short stages and change the strategy when a checkpoint comes in short.
• Build authority over time by publishing original work and earning links from articles placed where your audience already reads, writing about the same subjects you pitch.
• Treat social platforms as a way to turn customers into sharers rather than a direct sales channel, aim influence at a stated target, and expect constant promotion to shrink your reach.
• Give visitors who are not ready to buy something worth an email address, such as a guide, a sample, a webinar place or a contest prize, so you can market to them later.

Chapter 2

Overview

Audiences tune out promotional messages, but businesses still need attention. Most workarounds either look like ads or get skipped right past. Figuring out what actually gets a message through is tricky, and guessing wrong means nobody sees it.

Content is anything that carries a message to customers. Content marketing means creating that content and promoting it to hit marketing goals. Advertorials in newspapers came first, and they often worked better than regular ads, because people read articles and skip ads. The content has to be interesting and give people something useful. With regular advertising, the pitch sits next to the value. With content marketing, the pitch is built inside it.

This idea is older than the internet. In 1984, Hasbro made a twenty-minute cartoon to sell Transformers toys instead of a twenty-second commercial, and the toys sold like crazy. Two things brought this approach back in the internet age: you can reach millions of people, and creating content is far cheaper than it used to be. McDonald's answered every question people had, even whether its meat was made of cardboard, and put its own reply right out front before the critics could.

Advertorials copy the style of regular articles, which is why they're also called native advertising. According to the book, split testing found that advertorials pull in 81 percent more orders than the same words in a standard ad. When a piece turns into nothing but a sales pitch, it annoys readers. When it offers something useful alongside the pitch, it doesn't.

A press release asks journalists to pick up a story, but according to the book, half of journalists don't read them anymore. Only send one when you have a genuinely newsworthy story, with a headline and subject line that grab attention, and a body under five hundred words.

You've got options: articles, blogs, podcasts, videos, newsletters, advertorials, press releases, and engaging with people on social media. Pick the form your ideal customer already spends time with, and that starts with figuring out who your ideal customer is.

Key Takeaways

• Put your sales message inside content your customer actually wants to read, watch, or listen to, instead of interrupting them with a standalone ad.
• Learn who you're trying to reach before you pick a format, then make the kind of content that person already spends time with.
• Content marketing isn't an internet invention. It sold toys and ran in newspapers long before distribution got cheap.
• Give people real value alongside your pitch, because a piece that reads like nothing but a sales pitch turns them off.
• Save press releases for announcements that are truly newsworthy. Lead with a headline that earns attention, and keep the body under five hundred words.

Chapter 3

Overview

Publishing more content won't help a brand if nobody is waiting for it. But narrowing your audience can feel like shrinking your market. The truth is, different people like different things. The same message that turns one person off will draw another one in. And trying to reach everyone costs more than it gives back.

Identifying the target audience

You can't make content that works if you don't know who will read it and why. Target marketing still matters, even though demographics aren't as clear-cut as they used to be. To find your audience, answer six questions:

• How old are they?
• Where do they live?
• What gender are they?
• What is their education status?
• What ethnicity are they?
• What is their income or buying power?

These answers help you build an avatar, a picture of your typical customer, so you can shape your content around what they're likely to do.

The teenage audience

Teenagers aged twelve to seventeen watch less television than any other age group. Viewing hours dropped thirty percent between 2011 and 2015. They've moved to online video sites like YouTube. Facebook has become uncool for them because their parents and grandparents use it now. They prefer Snapchat because it feels more private. For this audience, TV and Facebook ads may fail. YouTube videos, blogger coverage, or a Snapchat campaign work better.

Building a persona

Sketch out a persona for your target customer. Include their demographics, their problems, and how your product helps them. It sounds like a grade school activity, but it keeps you from losing focus and trying to target everyone.

Applying audience identification to digital PR

A London cosmetic dental clinic targeting young professionals in their late twenties and early thirties with good income and concern for their appearance and oral health should make content about cosmetic dentistry options and costs. Use targeted keyword discovery based on what the audience wants, not just what's already on your website, to optimize for terms like teeth whitening or invisible braces.

DIY market research

To learn what interests customers, try doing your own research. For a new coffee shop, spend hours in a competitor's shop watching what customers order, whether they stay or take away, and when it gets busiest. For other products, run focus groups or hire a market research company. For e-commerce, look at competitors' homepages, sales, social media, reviews, and what makes them stand out. Test your site with Peek User Testing. Study your own data: landing pages, search terms, top sellers. Survey current customers with on-site surveys or SurveyMonkey about products, pricing, and what draws them in.

Building a digital PR strategy

When choosing a digital PR strategy, think about:

• Your main business goals and how digital PR supports them.
• What appeals to your audience, where they spend time online, what they read, who they follow.
• What makes you different and how much it matters.
• Your budget and what's realistic.
• What the big players in your industry are doing and what you can learn.
• What competitors are doing. If they're doing nothing, outrank them. If they're doing something, do it better.

Every content type, advice articles, how-to guides, blogs, newsletters, infographics, videos, social media posts, has to appeal to your target audience. Plan carefully with clear reasoning. Expect some trial and error.

Key Takeaways

• Figure out who your audience is before you make anything. Answer the demographic questions first, then turn those answers into one profile you can picture while you write.
• Draw up a persona that states your customer's problems and how your product solves them. Keep it visible so you don't drift into targeting everyone.
• Put your effort into the channels your age group actually uses. Younger consumers have left television and the social networks their parents joined.
• Do your own market research where you can: watch customers in a competitor's shop, run surveys or focus groups, study rivals' reviews and bestsellers, and build keyword lists from what your audience searches rather than from what's already on your site.
• Nail down your digital PR approach only after you can name the business goal, your audience's interests and where they hang out online, what makes you different, your budget, and what the biggest players and direct competitors are already doing.

Chapter 4

Overview

Coming up with ideas on demand is the first wall, and it is not the last. Even a strong piece goes nowhere if the people who decide what gets published never see it. Most small operations stall at both points without knowing which one is actually stopping them.

Ideas, goals and limits

A blank page stops most businesses. That is why getting past it matters. Written content is the easiest thing for a small business owner to produce. Long pieces get shared more than short ones, and readers engage with text more than with other formats.

Every piece needs a goal. Maybe you want to explain one idea well, hit a page-view or share number, win a specific client, or get a share from a chosen influencer. Then set your limits: how much time you have, what you can spend, and which skills and tools you already have.

Where ideas come from

Start with the sites that move you. Work out how they do it, and keep the good ones in a swipe file - bookmarks, Evernote, Trello, Pinterest. If you are nothing like your audience, read what they read instead. Note the themes and concerns that keep coming up, so you can say who each piece is for and why it will land.

Trends, news and rivals

Catch a trend early and you get exposure. Catch it late and you look like an imitator. Google Trends shows keyword search volume and lets you compare terms. A local personal trainer shows what is possible. His waist training content ran as a guest blog on a popular site. Newspapers picked it up, and the BBC interviewed him live.

News rewards speed too. Google News shows what the papers are covering. A letter to the editor of a major title can add your side of a debate.

Competitor analysis is fair game. Moz's Open Site Explorer and Backlink Watch reveal a rival's backlinks. Heavily linked articles are the successful ones. Followerwonk tracks the Twitter equivalent. The aim is not to copy but to understand why something worked.

Choosing an idea

• Go back to your goals and limits. Cross out whatever misses them or breaks a limit.
• Cross off anything boring.
• Get feedback from the people around you until everyone agrees.

Research tools

• Buzzsumo: what gets read and shared.
• Google Trends: keyword search volumes and comparisons.
• Google News: news-only search results.
• Twitter: breaking news, plus influencers and journalists.
• Evernote: one place for ideas.
• Trello Board: a shareable ideas board.
• Pinterest: images to draw on later.
• Response Source: a paid service that connects journalists and PR people, used by the UK national press.
• Open Site Explorer: a site's backlinks and their sources.
• Backlink Watch: free, slightly different results.

National newspapers are harder than smaller outlets. Their fees are beyond most small businesses, and their large journalistic teams mean they do not need content. They will still pick up a story you have created. The other route is through journalists. They are incredibly busy and ask for help on Twitter or Response Source. Be quick and useful, and politely ask to be credited. A health-sector client followed health journalists and watched Response Source. Answering a healthy heart week request won the client and its service a link on one of the UK's biggest news websites.

Editors as gatekeepers

Editors decide what runs, and they get an enormous volume of ideas. Find them through a publication's contact page. Then build a press list in Excel or Google Sheets with name, position, publication, contact details and social profiles.

• Missing email addresses are encouragement, since most people give up. A short Twitter direct message works.
• Where staff are unnamed, read the author bylines.

Crafting a pitch

An editor is thinking about being too busy to breathe and about what is in it for them. So a pitch must show a clear benefit and be read in under two minutes.

• A headline and subject line strong enough to intrigue people who write headlines all day, plus a tag such as (story idea).
• An opening line that works as a second headline.
• A body under five hundred words, naming benefits such as getting the story first, payment, or help promoting the story.
• An answer to "why you," either by making your business inseparable from the story or by stressing your qualifications.

Have the grammar checked. Avoid copy-and-paste mail. Name the editor and publication. Most pitches will be ignored. Follow up politely once.

One pitch that worked

Tom Hunt won coverage in The Daily Express with no budget or connections. His pitch, featured on HubSpot's blog, rode a trending topic about male leggings. It cited earlier Telegraph and Daily Mail coverage with its 4,000 shares and 200 comments. It offered to create the content itself and framed a London startup against a Chicago rival.

Networking and follow-ups

A first story is like a first job. Many doors shut first, but contacts make promotion much easier. An editor may even start coming to you for industry information. After a success, ask about a follow-up or a regular contributor slot. Stay in touch with editors who decline.

Key Takeaways

• Give every piece a goal and its limits up front: what it must achieve, how long you have, what you can spend, and which skills and tools you already have.
• Keep a swipe file of the sites that move you and work out how they do it. If your audience looks nothing like you, read what they read instead and log the themes that keep coming up.
• Watch Google Trends and Google News so you publish on a topic while it is still rising. Use backlink tools to learn why a rival's article earned links, not to clone it.
• Write your pitch for an editor who has no time: lead with the benefit, keep it readable in under two minutes, answer why you are the right person, and offer to produce the content yourself.
• Treat a placement as the beginning of a relationship. Follow up once if ignored, ask about a follow-up or regular slot after a win, and stay in touch with editors who said no.