Internet PR and Messaging Can Drive Visibility and
Sales
By Julie Woods McNamara
Today it's harder than ever for companies to get above
the noise and get their messages heard. Many consumers
are so overwhelmed with advertisements about new products
and marginally improved releases that they automatically
tune out anything that sounds promotional.
Consumers and business people are choosing to do their
own research on products and services by using the Internet
to find information on their own when they want it. Rather
than being driven by news broadcasts and advertising,
many people are driven by doing selective research using
search engines and receiving news alerts from favorite
web sites.
This changes the communication paradigm regarding company
and product news. Communication professionals now need
to become savvy about the use of the Internet as a key
PR channel and learn techniques to shape messages for
this dynamic environment. Not only is it important to
write creatively and informatively, the communicator
needs to understand Internet distribution strategies,
link-lists and search engine optimization. Used successfully,
Internet PR can deliver measurable results where PR
messaging and communications campaigns are tied to actual
sales.
While it may seem like there's no time to learn new
tools and technologies, there are many sites that offer
useful guides, quick tips and case studies on how to
achieve measurable results from Internet PR.
Key Tips for Getting Internet Coverage Where It
Counts
- Write short, interesting releases with newsworthy
hooks.
- Create releases with varying messages for different
audiences.
- Distribute releases through multiple press release
services.
- Understand the ranking criteria of each top search
engine.
- Send the release to industry specific news services,
web sites, link lists, discussion groups and e-zines.
Getting Coverage on the Web Can be Daunting
According to the The Measurement Standard, there
are over 80,000 newsgroups and 15,000 editors and reporters
writing for online publications. Trying to target each
one would be next to impossible for most PR organizations.
To get your word out, your best approach is to utilize
a combination of traditional and Internet "PR vehicles."
Press releases distributed by PR Newswire and
BusinessWire cost between US$300 and US$1,200,
but the major search engines will generally pick them
up within one day. Now that news search portals are
available on Google and Yahoo!, there's an even better
chance that your press release will be picked up quickly,
exposing your messages to some of the millions of web
viewers that visit those sites each day. Another way
to increase the use of your release is to send it out
via non-traditional information channels. Internet press
release distribution services such as PRWeb can distribute
your release widely and very inexpensively if not for
free. You can also target link-lists specific to your
audience and post releases on industry newsroom sites
that allow organizations to promote products and services.
Keywords and Messages for the Internet
Writing for the Internet is different than traditional
PR in that your target release length is roughly 250
words. However, most viewers will only read the first
50 words. So it's very important that you get across
no more than two interesting newsworthy messages in
your headline, subhead and lead paragraph. Make sure
to mention your product or company early as some users
won't search for terms in your message but may have
alerts set up to receive notification about your company
or product. Don't repeat your key message terms too
many times as some search engines may actually drop
your rankings.
Editors of e-zines and Internet news sites are very
similar to consumers. They have very little time to
decide which news releases are worthy of posting on
their site. By listing interesting industry tidbits,
referring to key clients or partners as well as mentioning
your product or company in the first paragraph, there's
a good chance you'll get coverage on a wide variety
of Internet sites. Long, cliché pieces about
your company have a good chance of being ignored.
Measuring the Impact
Once you've created a compelling release and sent it
out, it's important to measure what worked, what didn't
work, and where you can make adjustments to increase
coverage. Measuring the impact on the Internet can be
done simply by using a search engine or visiting target
sites, but the rapid distribution of information across
the Internet guarantees that you won't be able to track
down every reference to your release. To solve this
problem, you can monitor the key industry news and information
sites where your company or product may be mentioned
by using Internet clipping services such as CyberAlert.
This service will filter out "noise" sites
and focus on thousands of reputable Internet and discussion
sites for consumer and business users. To track the
influence of your messages on user purchase behavior,
one good technique is to include different contact names,
phone numbers and emails in each variant of your release.
When you receive inquiries, you'll be able to determine
which message drove the lead to your company.
Keys to Measurement:
- Monitor chat rooms for message pickup on a daily
or even hourly basis.
- Use different email addresses and phone numbers
to measure response rates.
- Measure web impressions for the whole story, not
parts of the story spread over several pages.
- Search for new web stories once per day.
Internet PR Case Study
Many of the techniques summarized above were used recently
by SEO-PR to design an Internet PR campaign for their
client SEMPO, a new trade association for the search
marketing industry. SEMPO planned to launch its web
site and an accompanying press release on August 20,
2003. Their goal was to receive press attention and
new members. By carefully defining key messages, sending
out multiple releases and measuring their results, SEMPO
far surpassed their Internet visibility, editorial coverage
and membership goals. The complete case study is available
at MarketingSherpa.com at the link provided below.
Useful links:
Julie Woods McNamara is EVP of Product Strategy at
Cymfony, Inc., a media analytics software and services
company based in Newton, MA. For more information on Cymfony,
please visit www.cymfony.com.
Discuss this topic with other IABC members at: www.iabc.com/memberspeak.
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