That approach made sense under 20th-century best practices. PR and marketing teams had different goals, tactics and techniques for how they accomplished their jobs, even working at cross-purposes if you weren’t careful.
Let’s face it -- the internet changed all of that. Customers, clients and media outlets can now search for products and companies that interest them without ever interacting with any of your traditional public relations and marketing efforts. Your agency needs to do the hard work of adapting to the new digital landscape, and it starts with aligning your PR and marketing efforts with a digital-first approach.
Acknowledge The Reality
People are online. They use the internet, and they love social media. This isn’t going to change anytime soon. We understand this implicitly, but sometimes it helps to see numbers that reflect this reality -- especially if you need to convince your leadership team that it’s time to align your PR and digital marketing efforts.
For example, according to the Pew Research Center, 79% of adult Americans who use the internet use Facebook. And a study by Nielsen states that “92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising -- an increase of 18% since 2007.”
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We get it -- your team is worried that your old tactics might not work any longer in a vacuum, but we believe they will still have value if your agency unifies its communication efforts.
Remove The Silos
How do you get your teams communicating? By first removing organizational boundaries between public relations and digital marketing, followed by instituting new processes and procedures that prevent people from retreating into their old bunkers.
At Integrate, we accomplished this by including people from multiple disciplines in meetings, whether creative, tactical or strategic. In practice, this can take shape in a few key ways:
• When crafting pitches for local media outlets, have an SEO expert present so your pitch can subtly guide media outlets to use key search terms.
• Crafting paid search landing pages for a new product? A PR expert can provide insight into what interests media members when searching for a client online.
• Double your impact by inserting the appropriate SEO backlinks into your digital press releases so people head to the right pages on your website.
Yes, these ideas are much easier said than done, but until your right hand really knows what the left hand is doing for a client, you’re setting up everyone for failure.
Develop Interdisciplinary Skill Sets
Everyone cannot do everything -- you do need topical and subject matter experts to lead teams, projects, discussions and entire departments so your agency and clients can succeed. But throughout my career, I’ve advocated for my employees to have a wide breadth of knowledge about our company’s operations, even as they drill down to develop their individual expertise.
What does this look like in the real world? It requires the creation of internal educational opportunities to cross-train people. When an account executive at Integrate plans a media strategy with a new client, for example, they can also counsel them on how that strategy could be enhanced by investing in digital marketing. Conversely, when our user experience team helps a client rebuild their digital presence, they can encourage them to use public relations campaigns to promote that brand new website.
By developing an integrated knowledge base among your employees, they can better explain the fully integrated range of services you offer to your clients.
Encourage Collaboration
Collaboration and communication are two sides of the same coin, so seek out ways to help your people work together -- without forcing it. You have smart employees, they’ll easily sniff out inauthentic situations.
Integrate has used several methods to great success, but we also caution that one size rarely fits all. You know your people best, so mix and match these tactics based on your needs. Consider the following:
• Send people from different departments to the same conference. When they return, have them develop a presentation on the material for the greater team.
• Choose a cross-functional team to redesign a core portion of your own company’s marketing efforts.
• Rearrange seating to encourage fresh interactions.
• Hold an offsite conference, wherein subject matter experts teach their coworkers about their fields.
• Conduct monthly “lunch-and-learn” meetings, so interested parties can learn about new industry trends.
• Research and implement revised processes and strategies for both onboarding new clients and refreshing current clients, paying attention to cross-department functionality, communication and accountability.
It’s one thing to say you want your PR efforts to coincide organically with your digital marketing expertise, but it’s another thing to create the space for this to occur. Ultimately, by following these tips, you’ll teach new and better habits to your teams so that they become one.
In short, I am recommending a revitalization of your corporate culture, as you won’t be able to integrate your public relations and digital marketing efforts successfully if your people don’t operate like a cohesive whole.
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Co-owner and CEO of Wellington Group Marketing & PR, a Texas-based digital marketing, PR and social media firm.
https://www.forbes.com/search/?q=Digital%20Marketing#3fee1112279f