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Inbound marketing combines PR to increase competitive opportunities
When inbound marketing strategies are combined with public relations or PR, it increases the chances of competing and helps the company succeed in increasing the visibility of the brand among the many competitors today.
A good brand or company image is a highlight that helps attract people’s attention and increase customers. Many companies choose to use PR to present their good things to the general public. However, the weakness of doing PR in the past is that the company cannot control the market as much as it thinks. This is because the target group of customers has a high self-esteem because there is information flowing to them almost all the time. This makes them have a point of comparison and affects their decision to choose or not choose any product or service. Therefore, the company must have a method to manage its online reputation (reputation management) that will help the company know how customers think and perceive the company’s products and services. This will allow the company to manage its image and create new content that will attract the target group to become interested and eventually become the company’s customers.
Inbound PR strategy uses the principles of inbound marketing, especially the principles of content marketing, to help enhance the brand’s good image. The PR strategy is used to help distribute good content that has been created to reach a large number of people and must ensure that those people are aware of the good image of the brand as intended. Therefore, the Inbound PR strategy is to create a channel to link content from publishers to the brand’s website, focusing on content that helps answer questions or solve problems that are pain points for viewers to create interest. Then, viewers will come to the brand themselves when they see that the products or services offered by the company are truly beneficial to them.
Inbound PR helps in building brand reputation and managing brand image.
Marketing in this era is not easy because target customers are starting to not give importance or trust in advertising as much as before. Nowadays, they will search for information online, including reading blogs or websites of people who have used products or have experienced solving problems like they are facing before to make their own decisions. Therefore, the Inbound PR strategy is used to change the traditional way of reaching customers by presenting well-made content about products or services through online influencers to create interest and strengthen customers’ trust in the brand.
Inbound PR strategy helps companies emphasize brand values to their target audience and clearly position the brand in the market. Creating a Value Proposition or the value that will be presented to customers is a way to differentiate your brand from other competitors and make customers remember your brand more. The content that the company should present to customers should focus on:
- How can your product or service solve a problem?
- What do customers get when they buy your company’s products or services?
- The advantages of your company’s products and services over competitors
These three content sections are important parts that the company must use as the main principles in creating content. There must be a good plan for creating content so that viewers understand and see the differences of the brand that the company has created that are better and different from other competitors. These will be the parts that help enhance Inbound PR to be more effective and reach the target group more, until the viewers eventually become the company’s customers.
As we mentioned above, the Inbound PR strategy uses the method of creating excellent content before sending it to the communicator or influencer to publish that content along with attaching a link or channel to the company’s website. When the audience reads the content from the influencer’s blog or website and is interested, they can click on the link to go to the company’s website to find information about the products and services that they are interested in.
Now that we know that the key ingredient to Inbound PR is great content, what companies need to do is:
- Create content that clearly demonstrates the brand’s values and identity. This may include mentioning the brand’s history and values that viewers will receive when choosing a product or product, as well as presenting the organization’s good culture. Many people may see the latter as just details added to the website to make the content complete, but for viewers, it creates an initial impression and allows them to get to know the company better, which will affect the brand’s loyalty in the future.
- Present a good image by creating content that shows social responsibility and excellent employee care. Because when a company takes good care of its employees, customers will believe that the company will take good care of customers as well.
- Perform quality SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by creating links from credible websites or blogs that connect to the company’s website.
- Present your products and services in a natural and subtle way through bloggers, gurus, and online influencers.
- Use buzz to generate interest and increase brand awareness, as well as use buzz to promote new product and service launches.
In the fast-paced online world, watch out for negative reversals.
The online world can make everything happen and disappear very quickly, including brand reputation. Although many marketers see the benefits of advertising and public relations through online channels because they can reach a large target group of customers quickly, this can also be both a benefit and a disadvantage at the same time. If just one or two customers are dissatisfied with the product or service and leave a comment on social media, other viewers who are searching for information about the company’s products and services and come across these negative comments may hesitate or have a negative feeling towards the brand.
Inbound PR strategy is a way to ensure that the company can control the opinions of the audience and create a good brand image for the company. Because customers will not know your brand superficially just by searching for information online, but will be aware of the image and deep value through well-crafted content presented by influential influencers in the online world, causing most people to trust and have a better view of the brand than receiving news or finding information from searching through search engines alone.
Inbound PR is an essential component of Inbound Marketing and sales generation.
Inbound strategy is a key secret that allows companies to quickly publicize their brand to a large number of customers. It uses the method of finding common points in marketing and sales areas before filling the gaps with the Inbound PR strategy, which clearly differentiates the brand from traditional brand promotion methods. For example, marketers will collect information on which social media the target group uses the most. Then, they will create content and publish it on those social media channels so that the target group can see the published content as much as possible. When the target group reads the content and sees that it is useful for them and can solve the problems they are experiencing, they will click on the link to the brand’s website to find more information. When they see that the company’s products and services can meet their needs, these target groups will eventually become customers who buy products and use the company’s services.
Another important part of doing Inbound PR is doing SEO and designing a good website so that the target audience can click through to the company’s website more easily. The website design for Inbound PR should focus on functions related to providing information and contact channels for interested parties. Because when viewers read the content created by the company via blogs or websites, including other social media, and are interested, they will want to know more information. And when they click on the link that connects to the company’s website and has the information they need, those viewers will eventually become customers. Therefore, the functions that the company’s website should have are the About function, which contains important content that the brand wants to inform the audience, and the Contact form function, where the audience can contact to ask for more information as desired.
The systematic foundation and workflow of Inbound PR will provide companies with an efficient and continuous approach to their work, as well as greater visibility into the weaknesses and shortcomings of the brand, which will allow them to quickly and easily correct them, significantly reducing negative comments and feelings that viewers have towards the brand.
Inbound PR is definitely going strong in 2019.
The rapidly growing online world has made Inbound PR a powerful tool for brands to stand out and differentiate themselves from the competition. This strategy allows companies to reach a larger audience and be more effective than traditional marketing.
Therefore, to make a difference and increase the chances of branding success, companies should learn and understand Inbound PR strategies and use them to their fullest potential to become market leaders in today’s increasingly digital age.
