Despite public relations professionals' knowledge of how to create relevant and compelling content, they are often left on the sidelines of implementing content marketing programs. For a cohesive and integrated program, it’s necessary for both practices to collaborate in order to create a comprehensive marketing plan to improve an organization’s market awareness and increase lead generation and nurturing capabilities.
Let’s look at six reasons why public relations professionals should be actively involved with managing and collaborating on content marketing campaigns courtesy of Jerry Goldstein, senior vice president of the William Mills Agency and contributor to PR News' Book of Content Marking Strategies & Tactics Vol. 1:
- Public relations teams excel at content creation. Today, many agencies are jumping into the content marketing business and are aligning themselves with content marketing software vendors to help manage the process. While these agencies are good at implementation and creative development, they often lack the skills needed for recognizing ideas that make for compelling content. Building the brand through effective storytelling is at the heart of what PR professionals do. Public relations teams can be instrumental in helping to identify and collaborate on content topics as well as ensuring they align with company messages and thought leadership positions.
- Subject matter used within content marketing programs needs to be educational and written without being “salesy.” Public relations professionals possess the proper mindset or third party perspective necessary to identify story concepts and provide the proper point of view. They are skilled writers who know how to look at issues from an unbiased and journalistic perspective, which is important because content marketing and public relations programs are not geared toward selling products and services as much as educating the marketplace.
- Public relations and content marketing teams should be cross-promoting each other’s content across their two programs. Public relations can be an effective channel for increasing awareness of company-developed content. For example, we recently created content for a client’s content marketing program based on a marketplace issue that was not currently on any of the editorial calendars. The public relations team created and distributed a media advisory on the issue that resulted in coverage by a significant publication. This coverage led to an important prospect downloading the piece, and this collaboration proves that public relations can be an important distribution channel for content produced by a content marketing team. The reverse is also true.
- Content teams should leverage public relations content as input for blogs to drive website traffic. A significant portion of the content used to attract visitors to a company’s website needs to be related to current events within the marketplace. Public relations professionals are typically in the best position to bring these content ideas to the table when considering new topics. Many of these topics are used to create pieces such as blog posts.
- Companies need to provide a unified and consistent message to their markets, which is accomplished through a tightly integrated communications program. Public relations and content marketing teams need to be on the same page with all content initiatives whether the content is self-published or distributed through the media. Leveraging each program’s expertise creates a powerful program that will produce results beyond what each initiative would do on its own. Having a cohesive, single voice is imperative for success in today’s marketplace.
- Public relations teams have been making content for a long time. PR has been at it since long before content marketing was a term or a strategic outfit. Content marketing teams should put that experience to use.
For more content marketing expertise, order a copy of PR News Book of Content Marketing Strategies and Tactics Vol. 1.
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