Promoting your brand in the right place and to the right people is the most crucial aspect of its success. The existence, legitimacy and quality of any business are judged heavily based on its online presence — its website, social media, reviews etc.

Investing in digital PR has emerged as one of the most lucrative strategies to gain authenticity and awareness while delivering your brand’s story.

Content marketing is key

Content marketing has proved to be the most effective tool for gaining online visibility for your brand. A well-planned content strategy will help your brand consistently appear in Google search results for relevant categories for the brand. 

Don’t just create content but think what key messages you’d like to deliver as well as shape your thoughts in a way to use the maximum number of the key words in the piece. The ultimate objective is for your brand is to be discovered; people will google you and your business, as simple as that, so it’s crucial to leverage those algorithms effectively.

So, how to use content to your advantage?

Website optimization

A company’s website is one of the foremost platforms potential customers use to gauge a business, hence it is an essential tool for conversion. The latest stats show that there are 99,000 searches on Google every single second, which means that website copy should incorporate Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Email marketing

Over 4 billion people use email, and that number is only growing. It has proven to be a most powerful channel to maintain relationships with relevant stakeholders and keep them updated. For B2B businesses, email communication has the power to make or break your business. Find the frequency sweet spot, so subscribers are not spammed. Communicate only if there is a legitimate business need to do so, such as bringing customers up to date, providing the best service and experience or commenting on the impact of events, rather than focusing on sales and call-to-action emails.

Strategic media relations

Consumers prefer to purchase products and services from a business that knows what they are talking about. By producing insightful content for media, your brand gains recognition as a market leader. Utilizing PR tools like opinion pieces or publishing relevant informative articles are effective techniques to leverage reputation. Media articles position your spokespeople as experts in their field, bringing attention to your brand and inciting trust in your offerings. Traditionally, there should be 3 to 5 contacts for a person with your brand, thus PR’s key role is to shorten that sales cycle, build trust and credibility to help business onboard that customer faster. All activities (sales, marketing, social, PR) should be done in sync to create an effective customer journey.

Effective social media management

Social media is the most important tool in content marketing today. With close to four billion social media users scrolling through their timelines, no business has the luxury of ignoring the value of the channel. Many of these sites act as ‘discovery engines’ for brands. On top of that, they appear at the top of Google search results, so why would you want to ignore them. Posting consistent, valuable, relevant, and trustworthy content helps businesses engage and retain their existing customers while generating leads by onboarding new customers who discover a brand online.

Audit & analyze

Just posting content isn’t enough. The performance of each piece of content across platforms needs to be audited and analyzed to evaluate the effect it makes. Data has to drive your content. From the very inception of a content strategy, data is integral to understanding what content will bring the most awareness to your brand and how users are engaging with your content.

*Our recommendations were originally published in Intelligent CXO magazine.