The Apprentice – why you’re no one without a strategy
I’m an avid watcher of The Apprentice, but every week I know that, just as sure as night follows day, one of the candidates will accuse another, usually in their final moments in the boardroom, of having no strategy.
In the Apprentice, as in the business world, lack of strategy is seen as a weakness, a failing on the part of an individual or business – or, indeed, the route to failure. And it is, at this time of year, when most businesses are deciding on their marketing and PR strategy for the year ahead.
For many of our construction and manufacturing clients, we are in the process of creating or have already finalised their Public Relations or Digital Marketing strategies. And, for many of these clients we take care of both.
So here are our top reasons why it’s a good idea to integrate both your digital marketing and PR strategy with a single marketing agency, like Dragonfly PR.
- We can create an integrated PR and digital plan. This includes all ‘traditional’ PR, as well as online PR, SEO and social media activity. The client is therefore aware of exactly what is planned and we determine what the KPIs are and how it will be measured. Clients like this approach as it gives them complete visibility over all their marketing activities.
- We can create and share content across all relevant platforms. Content is king these days, with Google Algorithm changes pointing towards good quality, authoritative, engaging content. The content we produce for case studies, thought leadership articles and press releases can be redrafted and keyword- optimised for use online. As an experienced PR and digital agency, we place good quality content at the heart of the strategy and make sure all activity adds value to the customer. It’s the beauty of taking care of both the digital and PR strategy – the client gets the best of both worlds. Content can be shared and we can reach out to influential contacts to enhance search engine rankings.
- We ensure keywords are integrated within magazine PR, social media, blogs and other online content. Having a strong, regularly reviewed set of keywords is crucial to any successful integrated PR and digital strategy. If this is managed properly by an integrated PR and digital agency, it means that we can ensure these keywords are being optimised in all written material.
- We utilise our contacts with authoritative sources eg news channels to generate more content online. Public Relations professionals like Dragonfly PR have great contacts with influential bloggers and authoritative online news journals. When the PR and digital marketing is integrated, it means that we can secure high valve influential online articles that can generate high levels of traffic to a website.
- It’s better value for money for the client if PR and digital marketing is integrated. We take a long term view, it’s not about quick fixes and jumping to the top of Google through paid adverts, as we take an organic drip-drip approach to building long term awareness and relationships. We are focused on raising our clients’ ranking through organic means, which means we deliver better value for money. We are looking for long term relationships with clients and this means that we don’t front load charges, but make an investment of our time in understanding our clients’ businesses from the start. This, combined with our commercial experience, means that we can deliver high effective, great value PR and digital marketing campaigns.
- At regular intervals during the campaign we can review, evaluate and report back on its success– this includes evaluating the whole campaign, as well as individual elements of it, refining it where necessary. We’re not just concerned with search engine rankings, this is an indicator of success, but not by any means, the only one. We evaluate the contributions made by online articles, magazine-printed thought leadership pieces, video content, social media shares and the like. The result is that by the end of the year, we have a comprehensive overview of the past 12 months, which we can present in a pictorial and statistical document to the client. Our clients like it and, most importantly, it works.
And by the way, my money’s on Richard to become Lord Sugar’s next business partner!
For a free review of your PR and/or digital marketing, please call 01709 300130 or email hello@dragonflypr.co.uk.
