Digital PR for Small Businesses: Boost Brand Visibility

Having a website and social media pages means existence. But they are unlikely to win any stranger’s confidence. People prefer looking for some kind of evidence. For instance, an article about you in local media, an interview in the publication about your industry, or any other external reference.

This brings us to digital PR. Digital PR for small businesses is all about creating brand recognition and credibility through media outreach, commentary by industry experts, publishing news stories, publishing in industry publications, partnerships with relevant media, and many other legitimate media placements.

There is no need to invest heavily in order to start it. Instead, you need some unique story about your brand or company, a clear audience, and some patience. The following guide will address the basics of digital PR marketing for small businesses, its main strategies, and frequently asked questions about digital PR.

What Is Digital PR for Small Businesses?

Digital PR marketing can be called public relations online. Here, a small business gives the media an opportunity to feature something useful and interesting, and the media decides whether they are interested in the story or not. These are the main elements that comprise digital PR:

• Online media coverage and journalist outreach
• Commentary in media stories related to your industry
• News stories for publications in the media
• Publishing in industry publications
• Industry-related references and partnerships
• Building brand recognition and reputation

Here are the differences from other digital marketing tools:

• Traditional PR is mostly based on print media, broadcasts, and events. Digital PR marketing is targeted at online media sources, where everything is available via search engine and can be easily shared.
• Advertising pays for the placement in online media. Digital PR earns these placements.
• Unlike the traditional social media marketing, digital PR marketing provides information via channels owned by someone else, not you.
• Classic link building focuses exclusively on obtaining links. In case of digital PR, links appear as a result of relevant coverage.

The whole point here is to earn the media attention, not to pay for the placement.

Why Is Digital PR Important for Small Businesses?

Digital PR is essential as far as it is about earning trust that cannot be bought and which does not require much money. Is it worth it to spend time on digital PR? In case a small business has its story to tell and realistic expectations – definitely yes.

It brings multiple tangible benefits for small businesses:

• Brand recognition of your small business with people who know nothing about you.
• Credibility in the industry through third-party verification, providing you with industry credibility and authority.
• Audiences that are already familiar with and trust media source where coverage was published.
• Traffic coming from publications that reference your website.
• Backlink opportunities as a result of the coverage provided by the media.
• Improved small business SEO, but only one part of the entire strategy.
• Reputation support as one of the elements of online reputation management.
• Differentiation of the small business in the competition.

Digital PR can help you with improving the SEO, but it cannot guarantee better ratings, good links, lead generation or increased revenues. The editors choose what to publish, and search engines determine how to process the link provided.

7 Digital PR Strategies for Small Businesses

Here are the strategies that can help a small business to obtain media coverage.

1. Create News Story

Journalists are not interested in your promotional story. You have to look for something really newsworthy: an innovative product or service, an important milestone in the life of your company, some interesting research, community project, etc. Everything that you have decided to share must have an angle. Try to ask yourself why somebody who is not your client should be interested in this information. Saying “we created a new product” does not mean having an angle. On the contrary, it is just an announcement. “Customer Habits Revealed by Changing Demands” sounds more like an angle.

2. Establish Relationships with Relevant Journalists

How to find journalists who are writing about your industry? All you need to do is search for it and then take notes about writers whose articles were found, and analyze their recent content on the media outlet author page. Afterward, write an email to the journalist explaining why your story suits his or her beat. Such digital PR outreach will bring results in case you respond timely and prove to be useful. Otherwise, never bombard journalists with emails if your story is not relevant to their beats.

3. Provide Expert Comments and Data

Provide journalists with expert comments that help them to complete the story: your experiences, observations, and patterns noticed in the course of daily work, results of your customer surveys, etc. You should disclose the methodology of collecting data and provide them transparently with the sample size of your survey. Do not fabricate any statistics, conduct any studies or pretend to have any scientific background. Otherwise, the relationship will collapse immediately.

4. Work with Relevant Industry Publications

Try to move beyond the big national publications and look for smaller media: local news sources, industry publications, niche blogs, association newsletters. It does not matter which of these sources will be higher in Google, as long as your potential customers are reading them. Building online authority means making multiple appearances in relevant sources, not just in one big outlet. It will allow a small business to establish online credibility with people who actually need it.

5. Make Use of Local Opportunities

Can a local small business benefit from digital PR? Definitely yes. Editors always want to cover the news that happen in the city they serve. Here are some examples of the ways small business can make use of local digital PR:

• Service small businesses can use this tool to share the safety tips for a season.
• Retail stores can mention their partnership with local manufacturer or charity initiative in media.
• Professional firms can make commentary on changing laws or local market.
• Local startups can make announcements about recruiting and launching a new product, etc.

6. Use PR Coverage across Multiple Marketing Channels

Any earned media coverage continues working after its publication. Publish them in the media section of your company’s website, promote in your social media, add in newsletters and sales presentations.

Remember about all terms of attribution, licensing, copyrights of each media source, and link back to them whenever possible.

7. Integrate Digital PR into the Online Reputation Management and SEO Strategy

Digital PR and SEO are both related to getting media coverage. But not every media coverage can generate traffic or provide links for search engines. Also, these links differ greatly from the links generated by digital advertisements and manipulation of search algorithms. The latter practices are strictly forbidden by Google according to spam policies.

How to Create a Digital PR Strategy on Small Business Budget

Digital PR strategy on the small budget is effective when it is targeted. Better to create fewer pitches that are well researched than a large number of generic messages. You need to do the following:

• Define the goal of the small business that should be achieved.
• Define your target audience.
• Identify your angle.
• Find out which media outlets and journalists cover your topic.
• Create a pitch and supporting materials, including a personalized email message, a head title, key facts, a photo, or an image.
• Send follow-ups in a professional manner, including one polite email after reasonable period.
• Evaluate the results, and adjust your approach.

Illustrative Example (Hypothetical)

Imagine a bike repair shop that wants to attract more clients locally. Then the goal is to raise local visibility of the business. Shop owner analyzes their repair records for frequent issues during certain seasons and develops a simple guide. Three local media sites and one biking website are chosen as the media where to pitch this guide, along with personalized messages. This is a hypothetical example, and the results of this kind of pitch are not guaranteed.

Common Digital PR Mistakes That Small Businesses Should Avoid

• Sending generic mass pitches
• Creating newsworthy stories that lack value
• Paying for links to manipulate the ratings of the website in the search engines
• Sending coverage to irrelevant media
• Fabricating data, research, or credentials
• Violating terms of coverage such as format, timing, embargo period
• Looking for quick results
• Assessing the success based on number of the links obtained

The main principle of any digital PR is being ethical and sustainable, honest, and respecting the editors.

How to Measure Results of Digital PR Campaign

Digital PR has to achieve media coverage by reaching right people and accomplishing certain business objectives of your small business. Key metrics of success include the following:

• Relevant placements in media
• Quality and relevance of editorial backlinks
• Referral traffic
• Brand mentions
• Relevant audience reach
• Brand search interest
• Leads, if measurable
• Traffic to republished media coverage

Everything depends on the industry, audience, small business, and specific campaign, so there are no guarantees. Pay attention to the trends over time.

Frequently Asked Questions about Digital PR for Small Businesses

1. What is digital PR for small businesses?

Digital PR for small businesses is about getting coverage, mentions, and credibility through outreach to media, expert commentary, interesting and newsworthy stories and publishing in industry publications. Instead of paying for ads, small business owners provide journalists and editors with useful content worth featuring.

2. How can small businesses benefit from digital PR?

Small business can gain brand awareness, third-party credibility, traffic from the referral and backlink opportunities. Also, coverage helps with reputation and differentiation in competitive landscape. Success is dependent on the story relevancy, target of outreach, and consistent efforts.

3. How much does digital PR cost for small business?

Costs of digital PR campaigns for small businesses depend on the scope of work, industry, and other factors. In some cases, an owner can manage outreach in-house using only staff time. At the same time, some people use outside consultants for digital PR. Therefore, you need to discuss pricing and tailor proposals.

4. Does digital PR help small businesses with SEO?

Yes, digital PR helps with SEO. Editorial coverage can provide your small business with editorial backlinks and mentions, traffic from referral, and even brand recognition. But digital PR does not guarantee rankings and cannot provide good links in any case.

5. Can a small business get featured in media?

In order to be featured in the media, you have to create a newsworthy story, research relevant publications and media contacts and then reach out with the story, providing useful expert commentary or insights.

6. What is the difference between digital PR and link building?

Link building is about acquiring links from outside sources to improve the rating in the search engines. Digital PR is about earning media coverage, mentions and credibility, including links. Links generated during the process of link building have to be obtained in an ethical and sustainable manner. Digital PR links have to be obtained by digital PR as an additional element of digital outreach strategy.

7. How long does digital PR take to bring results?

It depends on the scope, industry, resources, and specific of each small business. Sometimes pitches receive responses immediately, sometimes it takes many attempts, and in some cases, pitching fails.