Selling Digital PR
By Bina Emanvel on Sep 5, 2008 in PR2.0, featured
“But I want two corporate blogs, one each on Wordpress and Blogger! I do not want to lose out on any section of my target online audience!!”
A prospective client for digital PR made this statement recently with some enthusiasm and a lot of exasperation, after my two hour long presentation on social media. One deep breath later, I managed to draw an analogy he could understand and pointed out that the same way he wouldn’t keep two email addresses. Your browser may not support display of this image. Two corporate blogs would just dilute efforts. The client across the table was the internal marketing/advertising head. The next two hours were spent detailing what exactly PR is, what it does, and how different it is from advertising or bribing the media!
Many pitches down, I’ve realized that selling digital PR to clients, whether current or prospective, can be quite a frustrating job. While some clients might have greater understanding of what PR is and can see more clearly how an online campaign can complement a traditional one, many either confuse it with online advertising/marketing or feel that it’s just another platform for press release distribution.
Five ways to help ease the process:
1. Do an induction meeting: Just to set things straight. When you mention the possibility of a digital PR campaign to your client, you are thinking social networking groups and micro messaging. The client could be thinking Google ads and bannering, like we experienced the other day when a client kept probing us for a list of Indian websites for banner ads in our strategy presentation. Go with a presentation and educate the client on what the whole deal is all about.
2. Compare with traditional PR: Tell the client how different an online campaign is. If possible, go with case studies. If relevant case studies are not available within your organization, try sourcing one from an international campaign. Focus on strengths like intimacy with target audience, feedback generation, control, spontaneity and course correction. Give details on how the online space can complement a traditional PR campaign.
3. Indicate size by numbers: Before the client can rubbish the idea as something ‘new-fangled’, indicate the size and scope of the online medium using crisp statistics. Use India-specific numbers wherever possible. Present screen shots of brands using social media for PR. Do mention that while internet penetration is still low in India, it is among the fastest growing in the world.
4. Manage Expectations: Reinforce the dominance and significance of traditional PR. For some clients, you can rely on social media PR entirely. For most others, you can only look at it as an important value-add. Discuss with clients in advance of what they can expect from digital PR. Be very clear on what it entails and what it does not. Remove any confusion before you start working on a strategy. Outline the kind of audience they can reach out to and the messages they can communicate.
5. Discuss the tools: Discussing the entire process of a digital campaign with a client aids understanding. For instance, though a specific client might not require using memes or micro messaging for the online campaign, talking about it might help to convey the scope of digital PR. Plus; this can also be a great platform to discuss and shortlist tools that can be used for the client. Not only will you be able to work on a more effective strategy plan, you will save a lot of hassle trying to explain the nuts and bolts later.
Digital PR is exciting. Go prepared and be enthusiastic. If it’s relevant, the client will definitely bite.
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On Sep 5, 2008, Rajesh Lalwani said:
Nice piece. What’s more difficult than selling social media engagement to clients? Getting them to participate in conversations
Cheers
Rajesh
On Sep 5, 2008, Palin Ningthoujam said:
Hi Bina, just wondering if you also encounter issues like social media is handled by the marketing team and is out of bounds of the corp comm. And also who should handle social media – the Pr agency, a specialized social media agency, or the advertising agency that today has also some expertise on creating new web 2.0 like apps and sites.
On Sep 5, 2008, Michelle said:
Kudos!! What a brilliant piece!
On Sep 5, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Thanks Rajesh. Participation takes a lot of convincing too. Taking the whole process step-wise seems to really work for me though:-) Cheers
On Sep 5, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Hi Palin, issues regarding the ‘ownership’ of a social media campaign have risen many times. Many PR agencies do not have the bandwidth needed to create apps and sites and the client assumes that the creative team needs to take responbility. However, showcasing social media as an important value-ad to tradional campaigns, where the two are complementary and are leveraged to support one other, can make the client look at the exercise as PR.
When the marketing team is already responsible for social media, it’s a great idea to work with them towards a digital PR campaign. Micro sites and applications could be created according to the Digital PR plan by the agency, perhaps?
On Sep 5, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Thanks Michelle. Glad you liked it.
On Sep 5, 2008, Free Bee said:
Bina, thanks for an interesting piece.
Do you encounter problems where the client says: “Please suggest something you can execute else keep quiet?” You know, we can’t always hide behind the “we don’t have the bandwidth” cliche? Do you think it’s time PR agencies equipped themselves with creative teams who can offer web 2.0 and collateral solutions? If the days of traditional PR are numbered (which I am sure you have observed), is it time to change?
PS: Pardon the corny pseudonym
On Sep 8, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Hi Free Bee,
The decision to hire teams for web 2.0 solutions completely depends on an agency’s focus on digital PR. It is possible to offer plain vanilla online campaigns which do not require specialist teams, to start with, to gain confidence and momentum. Collateral designing can be outsourced to creative agencies either by PR agency or client. Do let me know what you think of this. Cheers
On Sep 8, 2008, himanshu kapadia said:
interesting read, i would love if you could give me some tips for my website and paper aks india enriched
On Sep 8, 2008, Free Bee said:
Bina, that’s the point – for a PR agency it’s not difficult to give ideas, suggestions, feedback. But when it comes to execution, we don’t know what to do. Client wants everything – “how will you do what you just said? how much will it cost? who will take ownership of this initiative?” If we say that of course your marketing department is capable of handling all the gyaan we just downloaded, we look like all gas, no action. Get the point?
I recently sat through a very uncomfortable meeting where a PR mahaguru came up with the most outrageous ideas on online PR. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from crying out loud – “Who the f–k is going to do all this?”
On Sep 8, 2008, BG said:
nice post,however, as some of the comments mentioned here about the difficulties in making client under the value proposition of a ethical corporate blog or any online engagements to facilitate your client brand rep through digital pr.
In India,traditions are major barriers and people who sit on the decision making seats are mostly influenced by ignorant or laid back consultants or some director of marketing.
Most digital pr proposals and relevant activities are kept under review or hold until the person who would sign the invoice understands the technology.
But for most of it, we were able to find solutions.
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On Sep 9, 2008, Marvin Dejean said:
Hi Bina:
Nice piece. I totally agree. As a digital PR firm we spend a great amount of time educating our clients about what social media is and is not. On another note do you guys do an ORM (online Reputation Management) at all? we find it to be a growing field and have sold many clients on teh idea already.
On Sep 9, 2008, Bhawna said:
Hey, i just loved the way you have written this article. Great post with enough information! Look forward for more such posts
Cheers!
On Sep 10, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Dear Free bee,
The planning and execution ownership of digital PR should ideally lie with the agency. If an agency does not have a team to develop collaterals, it can always outsource. We never recommend traditional PR ideas to client and tell them that their internal corp comm team can handle execution, do we? Preparation is the key here. Costings, plan of action, implementation all being part of the process.
Hi BG,
True, ‘new fangled’ stuff like digital PR always takes a back seat, but we need to figure out a way to convince each client individually. Glad to know that you have been able to work around the apprehensions:-)
On Sep 10, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Hi Marvin,
Haven’t had the opportunity to explore ORM as yet. Would love to hear more about your experiences! Cheers
On Sep 10, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Hey Bhawna! Thanks for the appreciation. Glad you liked the article. Cheers!
On Sep 21, 2008, Kız resimleri said:
As a digital PR firm we spend a great amount of time educating our clients about what social media is and is not. On another note do you guys do an ORM (online Reputation Management) at all? we find it to be a growing field and have sold many clients on teh idea already.
On Sep 25, 2008, Nivell Rayda said:
I love the Analogy. I think all digital PR practitioners are thankful for this wonderful article
On Sep 27, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Hi Nivell. The analogy is an important lesson, especially for me, to tone down jargon for some clients. Cheers
On Oct 30, 2008, Recep ivedik said:
On another note do you guys do an ORM (online Reputation Management) at all? we find it to be a growing field and have sold many clients on teh idea already.
On Nov 20, 2008, bhanu said:
Of course, its a nice piece of information. But i would say no comments.. Its too early to come to such conclusion..
Sometimes it seems impossible to convince a client for Social Media. Because of many loop holes in it.
The important part is monitoring. which is quiet difficult. But we should develop specific monitoring system for individual client. Ultimately client expects results. In social media the results are in traffic statistics and not in terms of published coverages as we see in traditional PR. Moreover.. showing case studies of other countries does not help.
If we are trying to ideate on Indian clients then they would expect something on India. As the perception in India is totally different. Very difficult to convince them, as they have preset minds. They see others and they start doing it..
On Nov 26, 2008, Bhanu said:
Digital PR is not just blogs Bina. What will be the ROI in India.
awaiting your reply…
On Nov 28, 2008, Bina Emanvel said:
Of course not Bhanu. I never said so either. As far as mapping ROI or monitoring is concerned, its best to customize as per client needs, in the same way you would customize a Digital PR programme. Cheers
On Dec 31, 2008, bhanu said:
Well, Digital PR is a big giant exercise. Out of that Social Media is just one of the strategy to be followed. Everyone here seems to be only discussing about social media. What about keyword rich online press releases which can be submitted through news wire channels. I am sure everybody is very much aware of it. You need to develop online press releases on every development your client does. If there is no development from your client’s side. Create it. But this is how you can promote your social media presence online.