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Why should digital PR be part of your marketing strategy? It’s simple. Unlike traditional PR, which focuses on print media, digital PR connects your brand with customers where they spend most of their time – online.
At Ignite SEO, we’ve seen first-hand the impact that digital PR can have on marketing strategies, taking businesses from having a faint online presence to getting the majority of their leads through their website.
In this blog, we’ll explore how digital PR strengthens your brand, improves search performance, and helps you achieve long-term success.
What is Digital PR?
Digital PR is a strategy that gets your brand seen, heard, and trusted in the right places online. It’s a modern approach to public relations that uses online media, like news websites, blogs, influencers, and social media, to build credibility, attract customers, and boost visibility.
Unlike syndicated PR, which distributes the same content across multiple outlets, digital PR takes a tailored, journalist-first approach – prioritising relevance, originality, and long-term value over mass exposure.
Want to know why this difference matters for your business? Find out in our full guide: What is Digital PR?
What Does Digital PR Involve?
A successful digital PR strategy includes a mix of tactics that work together to raise brand awareness and drive real results. Here’s what’s involved:
- Creative and Data-Driven Campaigns – Utilising bold storytelling, unique ideas and data-led insights to create attention-grabbing content.
- Press Releases and Media Coverage – Creating compelling press releases and pitching them to online news sites and industry publications to secure valuable media mentions.
- Thought Leadership Pieces – Writing expert insights, opinion pieces, and data-driven reports that position your brand as an authority in your field.
- Journalist and Blogger Outreach – Building relationships with key media contacts to get featured in high-profile articles that reach your target audience.
- Newsjacking – Jumping on trending news stories with relevant insights to gain media coverage and showcase your expertise.
- Influencer Collaborations – Partnering with trusted influencers to promote your brand through authentic, engaging content.
- Brand Mentions – Getting your business featured on reputable directories and industry websites to enhance credibility.
- Social Media Engagement – Amplifying media coverage, connecting with journalists, and building brand awareness through platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
- Reputation Management – Monitoring brand mentions, responding to negative press, and maintaining a strong, positive online presence.
Is Digital PR the Same As Marketing?
Digital PR and marketing are closely linked, especially within broader digital marketing strategies, but they serve different purposes. While marketing focuses on promoting products or services to attract customers, digital PR aims to build trust and credibility, ensuring those messages are supported by a strong online reputation.
A strong digital PR strategy amplifies content marketing by securing media placements, expert mentions, and links from trusted sources. These backlinks don’t just expand your reach – they also strengthen your SEO performance by boosting your domain authority.
What does that mean? Google sees your website as more trustworthy and relevant, helping you rank higher in search results and get discovered by more potential customers.
Want to see how this works in practice? Dive deeper with examples and expert insights in our blog: What is Digital PR in SEO?
The Key Benefits of Digital PR
What are the main benefits of using PR as part of a marketing plan?
Builds Brand Authority and Trust
Consumers are more likely to trust businesses that appear in well-known publications. Digital PR helps establish your brand as a leader in its industry by positioning you as a go-to expert through interviews, guest articles, and thought leadership content.
Drives Consistent, Targeted Traffic
A well-placed mention or feature on a high-traffic website can drive a steady stream of potential customers to your site. Since these visitors are coming from sources relevant to your industry, they are more likely to engage with your content and convert.
Creates Buzz and Brand Recognition
Successful digital PR campaigns generate conversations that help people remember your brand. Whether it’s a viral campaign, a data-led report, or an expert quote in a trending news story, the more your brand is seen in reputable spaces, the more recognition it gains.
Opens the Door to New Business Opportunities
Strong digital PR doesn’t just attract customers. It also catches the attention of potential partners, investors, and influencers who can further amplify your brand’s reach. Media coverage can lead to collaboration opportunities that drive long-term business growth.
Strengthens Online Reputation Management
Every brand faces occasional challenges, but digital PR helps you stay in control of the narrative. By securing positive media coverage and building a strong digital presence, you can counteract negative press and ensure your business is seen in the best possible light.
Boosts Social Media Engagement
PR-driven content often gets shared widely across social media, expanding your brand’s reach and encouraging engagement. Features in popular online publications provide valuable content that can be repurposed across social channels, keeping your audience engaged.
Supports Long-Term Growth
Unlike paid ads that stop delivering results once the budget runs out, digital PR efforts create lasting value. Securing a mention on a high-authority website, for example, continues to drive brand awareness and traffic over time, making it a sustainable investment.
Leverages Data and Creativity for Impact
By using data-driven insights, such as original research or compelling stories, Digital PR creates content that resonates with audiences and earns media attention. This approach ensures campaigns are both memorable and shareable.
Improves Search Engine Rankings
Digital PR helps your business get mentioned on well-known websites. When trusted sites link to your website, search engines see your business as more credible, which helps your site to appear higher in search results and attract more visitors over time.
How to Create a Successful Digital PR Strategy
A well-executed digital PR strategy helps businesses gain media coverage, strengthen their reputation, and attract more customers. However, for digital PR to be effective, it must be structured, targeted, and aligned with broader marketing efforts.
Here’s how to build a results-driven digital PR strategy.
1. Set Clear Objectives
A strong digital PR strategy begins with a clear purpose. Without defined goals, businesses risk putting time and effort into campaigns that don’t deliver measurable results.
- What do you want to achieve? Are you focusing on earning backlinks, increasing brand mentions online, or improving your customers’ overall view of your brand?
- What’s your strategy to reach these goals? If your goal is more backlinks, data-driven studies might be effective. If you want higher audience engagement, a creative campaign shared across social media could work best.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
Reaching the right audience is essential for successful digital PR. Understanding who you need to connect with ensures your campaigns are seen by the right people in the right places.
- Who are you trying to reach? Define your target audience by demographics, interests, and pain points.
- Where do they get their information? Do they follow industry blogs, mainstream news sites, social media influencers, or niche publications?
- What type of content resonates with them? Tools like BuzzSumo help identify popular topics and trending discussions that drive engagement in your sector.
3. Develop a Campaign That Stands Out
For your PR efforts to gain traction, your campaign must be engaging, relevant, and shareable. Journalists, bloggers, and influencers look for newsworthy stories that spark discussion.
- Find your angle – Whether it’s a unique data insight, expert commentary, or a creative spin on a trending topic, your campaign needs a hook that makes people take notice.
- Make it timely – Tapping into current events or industry trends increases the chances of getting media coverage.
- Align with your brand – Your PR efforts should reflect your company’s expertise and values while also being valuable to your audience.
4. Amplify Your Campaign Across Multiple Channels
A digital PR campaign shouldn’t live in just one place. To maximise its impact, you need to actively share the campaign itself across your own channels. This isn’t about pushing out syndicated content – it’s about taking your original campaign and showcasing it where your audience is already engaged.
- Publish on your website – Create a blog post, case study, or dedicated landing page that explains the campaign and highlights its key messages.
- Share on social media – Post insights, data, or visuals from the campaign on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms to spark conversations and boost reach.
- Feature in email newsletters – Discuss the campaign in your email updates to inform and engage your existing audience.
5. Build Strong Media and Influencer Relationships
Establishing relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers ensures your brand consistently appears in high-authority spaces, increasing credibility and reach.
- Find the right contacts – Research journalists and media outlets that cover your industry, using tools like Muck Rack and HARO.
- Personalise your outreach – Tailor your pitch, referencing the journalist’s previous work or their specific audience.
- Maintain long-term connections – Follow up with journalists and influencers, offering them relevant insights over time to build lasting relationships.
Measuring and Tracking Digital PR Success
Like any business endeavour, it’s vital to have a set of KPIs to measure the outcomes of your digital PR. Digital PR tools allow businesses to see where their brand is mentioned, how many people are engaging with their content, and whether PR efforts are improving search rankings and website traffic, among other metrics, to measure success.
Since digital PR earns high-quality backlinks and brand mentions, it plays a vital role in how search engines like Google assess the authority of your site. This makes it just as important for improving your search rankings as the content on your website itself.
Here are some of the best tools for measuring PR performance:
- Ahrefs – Tracks where your website is linked from, how strong those links are, and how they impact search rankings.
- SEMrush – Monitors brand mentions, website traffic from PR campaigns, and how well your site ranks in search results.
- Brandwatch – Measures how people talk about your brand online and whether sentiment is positive or negative.
- Meltwater – Tracks media coverage and audience engagement to show which PR activities are working best.
Work With an Unstoppable Digital PR Agency in London
Ready to experience the benefits of digital PR yourself?
As a specialist digital PR agency in London, our expertise at Ignite SEO is recognised by major media platforms, with features in Yahoo News, The Sun, Mirror, MarketWatch, and Intrado GlobeNewswire.
We take a strategic, data-led approach to digital PR. Every campaign is carefully planned, from identifying the best media opportunities to creating compelling content that captures attention and drives engagement. You’ll always have full clarity on what’s happening, why it matters, and how it fuels your business growth.
If you’re ready to elevate your brand and turn PR into real results, we’re here to make it happen. Work with Ignite SEO and take your marketing strategy to the next level.
Frequently Asked Questions
We’ve answered some key questions you might have about Digital PR and how it fits into your wider marketing strategy.
What Is The Difference Between Digital PR And Traditional PR?
The difference between digital PR and traditional PR is that traditional PR focuses on print, TV, and radio coverage, relying on press releases and journalist outreach. It has limited reach and is difficult to track.
Digital PR, on the other hand, uses online platforms like news sites, blogs, and social media to increase visibility and drive results. It’s also a key part of SEO, helping your website show up in Google searches by earning trusted links and mentions. In today’s fast-moving digital world, it’s more flexible, more measurable, and more effective.
Want to understand the full picture? Explore the different types of traditional and digital PR in our blog: What Does PR Mean?
Why is Digital PR Important?
Digital PR is important because it gets your business noticed, trusted, and remembered. By securing media coverage on well-known websites, it ensures your brand reaches the right audience and stands out in a crowded market. It builds credibility, increases brand awareness, and keeps your business part of key industry conversations.