The modern version of PR is digital PR. The world where you work with influencers, bloggers, YouTubers, Instagrammers, or anyone who’s influential online. Digital is everywhere. In 2017, also, we have been hearing a lot about Inbound marketing as a trend that marketers need to watch out. An inbound strategy must present in marketing campaigns.
During IPRA Conference SO:PR SO:MARKETING SOFIA that UP organized in Sofia in October, we heard about Inbound PR from the person who has created the term – Iliyana Stareva, Global Partner Program Manager at HubSpot. She has a professional blog where you can learn a lot about Inbound PR. Her book Inbound PR is coming out in January 2018.
Inbound concept is the evolving relationship between marketing and PR. Inbound PR combines content and measurement – that’s the simple explanation. Content and measurement is something we have always been looking at when teams where planning campaigns for clients.
When going digital, PR campaigns include all media types within the PESO model—Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned. In UP, we have been building our integrated marketing campaigns around the PESO model for years now. For this same reason, we are pleased to know Inbound PR is something we are familiar and will be able to jump in right away in 2018.
So, what are the similarities between PESO and Inbound PR. In both you set realistic expectations. Your campaign plan has an integrated marketing approach. Setting KPIs in the beginning are of key importance, especially when they are linked to business goals. Always-on communication and realtime optimization during the course of the campaign, get you real ROI.
In Iliyana Stareva’s blog we have found a well-structured explanation how Inbound marketing and PR works. See the image below.
So, what are the similarities between PESO and Inbound PR. In both you set realistic expectations. Your campaign plan has an integrated marketing approach. Setting KPIs in the beginning are of key importance, especially when they are linked to business goals. Always-on communication and realtime optimization during the course of the campaign, get you real ROI.
In Iliyana Stareva’s blog we have found a well-structured explanation how Inbound marketing and PR works. See the image below.
- It Attracts strangers into the visitors of your website by means of blogging, social media, press releases. The whole online presence is done with well-thought SEO, of course.
- It aims to Convert these visitors into leads. The landing page usually offers diverse content like videos or whitepapers and from a contact form you get visitors’ personal data.
- It Closes the leads into publishers or customers by using an email marketing or social media conversations approach. Here you can offer customers special events offers, exclusive content like interviews, etc., if we are targeting media.
- It Delights while aiming to build strong relationships with those publishers or customers and to turn them into people who repeatedly do business with you. Here, you continuously engage with those users in social media or even educate them with more valuable contextual content.
The whole idea of Inbound PR is that helps brands to focus on something real instead of pushing added value messages only. It’s because Inbound PR is based on using a lot technology. Real stories are the one who truly teach audiences and make them engage. Consumers want to consume content at their own time, at their own pace. They want the content to find them wherever they are active and whenever they’d be interested in it. In the center of Inbound marketing campaign is the targeted audience. The whole plan, messages, actions need to be based on these people’s interests. Knowing what audience wants, it’s achieved through deep research and analysis in order to find out good insights that can be the base of your campaign.
Unlike the outbound thinking which focuses on outputs (how many press releases and how much coverage), inbound looks at the bottom line and measures impact. That impact often comes from an increase in sales which turns PR from just a communications discipline into a management discipline.
Aiming always to be a leader on the market, in 2018 UP is going Inbound. We have been reviewing HubSpot and SharpSpring. Stay tuned for details very soon!
Happy New Year to all of you! It’s going to be an exciting year for UPeople.