One of the two most common misconceptions I hear on a regular basis about public relations is that its purely an exercise in vanity (the other being that we “spin,” but don’t get me started on that). I hear that PR exists to make CEO look good to shareholders or attract employee candidates and that it doesn’t show a strong return on investment.
While elevating a CEO as an industry thought leader or before seeking venture capital certainly has its place, a tech-specific PR agency can also drive leads, clicks and traffic, acting as an extension of the marketing department. As the line between sales and marketing continues to blur, let’s take a look at three ways PR can bolster your existing marketing content strategy:
You have a highly technical product
SaaS can get very technical, very quickly. For some, reading product specs and highly technical use cases can be like reading the ingredients list on a bag of chips. Sure, sodium diacetate and tricalcium phosphate make sense to a food scientist, but not so much for the person eating the chips.
In the same vein, decision makers at end-user businesses aren’t always going to understand, or care about, the latest runtimes and registries. They want to know that your product solves their problem.
A PR agency with a dedicated tech focus can translate highly technical products into problem and solution focused case studies and thought leadership pieces, cutting through the industry jargon and answering the question that is foremost in their mind, “is this product worth the money I’m paying for it?”
Your sales team is constantly looking for more touchpoints
Compelling touchpoints are vital to helping your SDRs and account reps qualify leads and keep prospects moving through the sales funnel. As a result, your sales team can devour content quickly, especially if yours is a sales process that requires many unique touch points.
Unfortunately, new marketing content takes time to research, draft, design and publish. This can push an already stressed marketing department to their maximum bandwidth.
PR agencies employ experienced writers that can complement your current marketing content strategy by cutting and splicing existing ebooks, case studies and blog posts into entirely new pieces, allowing your marketing team to put more miles on the content it has already developed.
Furthermore, agencies will work to place this new content with trade media, lending third-party validation and increasing its trustworthiness.
PR is a scout party
Remember those old spaghetti western films where just before a big battle, the hero of the movie would send a scout party to get a set of eyes on the enemy before the shooting started? PR is – minus the tall hats and revolvers – very much like a scout party.
Whether it is sponsored social media posts, PPC ads or search engine marketing, new messaging costs money. On the flip side, PR only costs time.
Feedback from trade publication editors and careful observation of the comment section on a piece of contributed content can tell you whether or not your new messaging is hitting the mark. Combine these efforts with meticulous tracking of keywords in Google Analytics search console and your business can track new message efficacy with only a few hours time cost every week.
Content-based marketing is popular for a reason, it works. However, content without strategy is just adding to the noise. An experienced tech PR agency can help create compelling content by cutting through the noise and jargon to get to the heart of what end users want, a problem solved.
Looking to extend the life of your marketing content strategy? Check out how PANBlast secured key marketing messages for a client in top-tier technology publications.