When setting up a marketing strategy, you don't miss out on the importance of content marketing and PR. You can find all kinds of articles online about the importance of both content marketing and PR. In fact, they are mentioned very regularly in the same breath. But as a result, they also sometimes lose their meaning. In this blog, you'll learn the differences between the two and learn how to use them.
First of all, it's good to have some general knowledge about the different forms of media. The PESO Model is a commonly used framework for setting up a marketing strategy. PESO stands for Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned Media.
Paid media stands for all forms of advertising. You pay for the visibility of your content. This ensures that this is presented to the target group you have chosen. Online paid marketing offers the advantage of target group segmentation based on user data. After all, platforms have collected enough data about their users that you can use. This includes demographic data, usage data, and other valuable information that you can capitalize on. Paid media often focuses on the 'awareness' phase of the marketing funnel. This is because you can reach more people with paid content than with organic content.
A very valuable type of media is so-called “earned media”, because it costs (almost) nothing and involves a high level of credibility. However, this form of media remains difficult to influence, because you have no control over its content. When someone views your organization's earned media, it can spark interest among a target group that you may have reached before. In doing so, this form of media responds to the 'interest' phase of the marketing funnel.
Shared media is a type of customer testimonial. This includes all the content that customers share from or about your organization. You also have little influence on these media. Shared media refers to the “loyalty” phase of the marketing funnel. In this phase, you want customers to share their experience and thus increase brand engagement.
Organizations are increasingly aware of the importance of their own media, especially with the explosive popularity of social media platforms. When someone visits your organization's page, they've already gone through the awareness and interest phases of the marketing funnel. Owned media therefore focuses on the 'consideration' and 'action' phases of the marketing funnel.
The marketing funnel has already been referred to several times above. This is a commonly used marketing model to identify which phase of the customer journey a customer is in. With this information, you can touchpoints determine each phase and respond to this.
Content marketing has a number of different goals. You use content marketing to reach your (desired) audience at multiple points in the marketing funnel. You can do this through all kinds of content. Many people think of content as photos on Instagram, but blogs, website texts and newsletters also fall under the heading of content.
When creating content, consider the following points:
• Provide solutions to (potential) customers' pain points. For example, do you notice that your target group has difficulty using a product that you provide? Create an infographic for social media, or write a tutorial and publish it as a blog post.
• Distribute your content through relevant channels that make sense for your organization and where your target group can be found.
• By means of guest blogs on other sites, you can strengthen your brand position. In addition, you strengthen link building when this site links to that of your organization.
Public Relations (PR) is primarily aimed at promoting an organization's image. In PR, the focus is on getting media attention (free of charge). By regularly appearing in the news, an organization can reach and maintain a top-of-mind position. This means that the function of PR is mainly focused on the 'awareness' and 'interest' phases of the marketing funnel. To get the news, it is important that an organization has something remarkable to say. This can again be segmented by means of different forms of news. When an organization is featured in the news as an expert, this effectively contributes to their thought leadership status.
Tips for reaching out to journalists for free publicity:
• Provide strong and relevant messages in terms of content.
• Distinguish between the different types of news and determine what type of news your news story falls under. Doesn't it fall to any of them? Then it's probably not newsworthy enough to get busted.
• Ensure the right balance between frequency and quality.
There are a number of important differences between content marketing and PR. One of the biggest differences is that content marketing usually focuses on direct conversion. For example: getting visitors to a website or collecting subscriptions to a newsletter, with the ultimate goal of selling. PR is less focused on direct action by a potential customer and more focused on reaching a potential customer. Another big difference is that PR only uses earned media, in the form of free publicity. Rather, content marketing focuses on paid, shared and owned media.
By combining content marketing and PR, you can touch all aspects of the PESO model.
