Traditional PR is Broken (vol 2): The Online PR Bullet List
Our post on the death of traditional PR a couple of weeks ago managed to raise a few pulses.
I’ll admit it was very provocative in some areas, but we had a very definite point to make. Traditional PR can be wasteful because it’s inaccessible, it doesn’t scale and it’s not very measurable. Online PR is the antidote to these issues, and is perfect for firms who want to see an immediate return on their marketing spend.
Anyways, the post sparked off a whole bunch of debate (thanks to everyone who commented and wrote to us – all super stuff!!) and a variety of really interesting conversations with clients… So I thought I’d do a wrap up piece that breaks the core ideas down into bite-sized chunks.
So here goes – a bullet list view that describes why traditional PR is broken and why Online PR is a winner….
Traditional PR Doesn’t Scale
- The mechanics are this: when you have a story, the gateways to seeing it in print are i) a reporter and ii) his magazine and its editorial brief. To break through these gates you have to i) beat the reporter’s ‘information overload’ (you’re one press release / one call amongst a million) and ii) conform to an editorial agenda that’s driven by advertising requirements (ie, it’s probably not aligned with your interests!).
- Further, this model is finite: there are only so many traditional magazines and papers, and each have a limited amount of space (determined by advertising) and a limited editorial remit to reach a set audience profile (in fact less so now that audiences are moving online).
- As such, traditional PR doesn’t scale because it’s tough to grab a reporter’s attention and traditional media destinations are few. (In addition, as already mentioned, your PR agency will also have a limited amount of ‘goodwill’ that it’ll be prepared to use to influence reporters on your behalf.) Supply outweighs demand – there is a limited inventory of ‘ink.’
Traditional PR is Fluffy
- Beyond that, traditional PR works on a loose and fluffy principle of influence – ie, ‘I read your article, so I may (or may not) be inclined to call you / visit your web site / etc’. This is not very measurable.
Online PR Scales Infinitely (and is Therefore Accessible to Everyone)
- At a very basic level, Online PR scales extremely well. The guts of it are driven by software and an abundance of user-generated media (blogs, forums, social networks, etc). Both of these things can’t get enough content.
- Google is insatiable – it’s mission is to ‘organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.’ It doesn’t filter content like a magazine editor, it consumes it and indexes it in order to give searchers a richer, more valuable search experience.
- At the same time, the number of ‘user-generated’ (ie non-traditional) publishing outlets is booming (eg, Technorati indexes millions of blogs every day, and this number is growing). This means there are infinitely more ‘homes’ for your content online than off.
- These online services and destinations are more finely targeted than traditional media can ever be – there are blogs, forums and search queries for every requirement imaginable; therefore working within this sphere is more cost-effective as audiences are infinitely more engaged.
Online PR Drives Valuable Web Site Traffic and is Very Measurable
- In addition, even with a low volume of audience ‘impressions’ (ie, low readership/viewing), if you’re able to make an impact in these online destinations, then the ultimate payoff is better PageRank and search engine performance. Your very presence on them will establish more paths back to your web site (aka backlinkage) which provides enormous value to Google. This aspect is an extremely powerful reason for doing Online PR: when done in the right way (and using the right language/keywords), it will have a very positive effect on your SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) performance…
- Either way, a very basic benefit of good Online PR is generating high quality web traffic – ie, you can more or less guarantee that good Online PR will deliver a positive, demonstrable result that can be measured easily (via a web analytics package, by signups, by purchases) …unlike traditional PR, whose ultimate gain is intangible (at best, ‘feel-good’). (Of course, there are other benefits to great Online PR – such as reputation management, customer engagement and support, buzz and so forth – but I won’t go into them here…)
Now, I’m not suggesting that traditional PR is a bad thing. Far from it. It’s a brilliant tool for generating trust, awareness and validation. A piece in a trade mag or the FT is worth its weight in gold.
My point is that this net result is attainable only after investing a stack of cash. Therefore for some companies, it’s better to start in the Online PR arena for first – ie, create some Online momentum and then go for traditional PR tactics when you’re ‘hot’ enough for the traditional PR machine to care for you and accommodate you.
In other words, in traditional PR, the cards are firmly stacked against some companies because the model doesn’t scale to accommodate them… whereas, with Online PR, if you box clever, you’ll always find success.
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The discussion between traditional and online PR needs to be well balanced, and your article serves that purpose finely. Shouts like “Traditional PR is dead” and “Online PR is bullshit” won’t get us nowhere. Creating online momentum before launching more conventional tactics might be an interesing way to combine both. I would sure like to see some success stories on this approach.
Fredegre
08 Dec 2008
Hey Fredegre – thanks for the feedback. Yes, that’s the general idea… create momentum online first… then go BIG. Here’s a good example: http://www.contentandmotion.com/our-work/online-pr-case-study-agency-for-non-windows-vista-social-club/
Roger Warner
08 Dec 2008
Interesting study material… Thanks!
Fredegre
10 Dec 2008
Great piece Roger. The scaling points are very important, as the time spent trying to get one or a handful of journalist’s attention becomes a bottleneck / timesink, and carries great risks (if you fail). However you can’t deny that getting coverage on mainstream TV / radio station / press – or in the right niche media – scales.
It’s integration surely – getting the brand name, URL or specific page links in the coverage – then your SEO magic joins the dots for all those who follow-up online… surely that’s the dream team? Broadcast-only or SEO-only are both missing something.
So am I imagining it or are you actually saying, by inference, that SEO on its own delivers greater ROI than other approaches on their own?
BTW, you’ve got ‘tradional’ instead of ‘traditional’ in your headline – you could fix it but the URL stays the same, sheesh
Deirdre Molloy
25 Jan 2009
hey deirdre…. yup – totally with you on trad/pr media scaling when done well. i’m a trad PR myself really. my problem with it isn’t that it can’t scale, but that – for most firms – it takes a tonne of cash to make it so….
soooo – point i’m generally making is – if you’re not currently dish du jour and you don’t have very deep pockets – then try getting results with online PR first…. this ought to drive interest, traffic and sales. and then when this is humming, go the trad PR route. in other words, online PR is a better place to start building your brand platform…. (and online PR ought to be more than pure SEO tactics…. )
and thanks for the typo spot. that one was a howler. ouch!
cheers
roger
Roger Warner
25 Jan 2009
Cheers, thanks for clarifying Roger! Following through this line of thought, what would your advice be to large or “superbrands” then? If their trad PR is working well, why bother with online PR? (as demarcated from online marketing and advertising – which nearly all brands do).
Okay, maybe it won’t cost as much as trad PR, and it may help them reach new audiences more adept at filtering-out advertising. But surely there is a hidden and unpredictable cost – the cost of changing the culture of a company so that it adapts to the requirements operating in the online PR and social media space, which clearly encompasses more than SEO…
Deirdre Molloy
02 Feb 2009
hey Dierdre…. advice would be to do both, since they can probably afford it!
for these guys there are different types of budget decisions to be made since they’re dealing with a marketing ‘portfolio’. but there’s great value in doing both at this end of the scale – they just need to be sure of the value of online PR. and you mention some really good reasons for mega-brands to do it….
culture change and associated costs to my mind depend on the scale / ambition of the work and which parts of the biz it touches. great online firms live and breath it. to start experimenting you don’t need to change everything up… to become an all star might cost money though if the firm isn’t already geared to marketing this way…
Roger, Online PR Agency, C&M
02 Feb 2009