We often build robust media relations strategies for high-growth clients that are introducing new products or services, entering new markets or facing close competition because garnering media placements in targeted outlets is one of the best ways to position our clients and their initiatives at the forefront. By setting goals in Google Analytics, we can also see how media placements generate traffic to your website.
However, when someone reads about your organization in the newspaper, in many cases it is their first interaction with your brand. Their next likely interaction is going to be online – through your website or social platform. So how can you convert viewers and readers into customers and brand advocates?
If you really want to leverage the awareness created through media relations, you need to ensure you have the ability to further cultivate relationships with them when they do visit your website and connect on social media. So much of this is done through the effective delivery of content piece such as white papers, ebooks, quizzes, case studies and one pagers. So how does it work?
Create compelling content
Create various pieces of highly targeted content to appeal to individuals and wide-ranging audiences based on their relationship with your organization or their “buyer’s journey.” The buyer’s journey consists of three main phases:
- Pre-awareness: someone in the pre-awareness phase has a general interest in organizations, causes or products like yours, but they do not yet know about your organization. Typically pre-awareness content is general and contains information about the cause or issue your company is committed to. There is little or no mention of your brand in this type of content piece.
- Awareness: someone in the awareness phase knows your organization or product, but hasn’t donated, purchased or taken any desired action. Awareness content begins to introduce the individual to how they can work with your company or become a part of your cause.
- Consideration: someone in the consideration stage is close to making a final purchasing decision. This type of content is very specific to your brand and addresses why the person should choose your product or donate to your organization.
As an example, we’re creating new content for Mango Languages, a leading provider of language learning software, targeted toward professionals assisting employees with job reassignments abroad. These individuals making the purchasing decision for language learning software are concerned with employees’ overall well-being during their time overseas. The first piece of content we created is a checklist to help them identify whether or not the employee they are working with is experiencing culture shock. The second piece of content, for the awareness stage, is a white paper that discusses the importance of making global relocation a family matter. The final piece of content is a case study, which provides detail about another company successfully using Mango Languages. So our initial content is very general and addresses the challenges of reassignment, while our last piece of content shows Mango in action.
Effectively place content throughout your website
Effective content placement helps you meet the buyer with the right information at the right time. Once you have content for each phase of the buyer’s journey developed, think about how the content pieces can be logically placed on your website. For example, someone visiting your homepage or about us page is likely someone new to your organization, so pre-awareness content should be housed on these pages. As someone gets to know your organization, they’ll probably start to delve more into the how and why, so awareness content should go on a “how it works” or similar page. When someone is ready to donate or purchase, they’re on the fundraising or pricing page and should receive more detailed content to help them make their decision.
Put the content behind a form
Once you have this content developed, it should be promoted and shared through your company emails, blog and social media posts to drive further engagement and continued relationship development. If you’re creating compelling, useful content that people really want to read, they’re usually willing to give something up for it. This is where you can take your relationship to the next level. Capture their email and a little bit more about them, so you can begin to hone your communication and cater to their individual interests. Through email and direct outreach, you can begin to turn interest into desired action by engaging with potential buyers and supporters when and where they paying attention.
Effective content helps you convert unknown site visitors into donors and customers. If you want to effectively measure the impact of media relations, this is the first step in the right direction.
Photo Credit: liz west
