Digital PR is a marketing strategy that combines traditional PR media relations with digital channels such as SEO, social media, and influencer marketing. Digital PR allows brands to develop relationships with influential media outlets in order to earn editorial coverage, thus improving their website backlink.

The goals of digital PR can undoubtedly change depending on your brand. Some companies might want to partner with Instagram accounts with large followings containing their target demographics to drive sales.

Types of digital PR campaigns

In our experience, campaigns that use data points generally work the best in terms of getting coverage.

Of course, data campaigns aren’t the only way to generate digital PR and there are many other completely valid methods. However, we find using data tends to be the most consistent and reliable.

Existing data campaign

In an existing data campaign, you’ll want to identify some type of data source you can use to find interesting insights as the premise of your content you’ll be pitching to journalists.

There are many instances of public data sources out there that are at your disposal. 

Survey campaign

Creating surveys is a fantastic way to get data that you can use in your content if you don’t have data readily available. You can do this by using tools such as Google Surveys and getting around 2,500 – 3,500 responses. This will create a unique dataset.

Map campaign

As the title suggests, a map campaign is a type of digital PR campaign where you overlay your data insights on a map. For example, in this campaign for “The Most Googled Pie In Every State” from Prevention.com, you can see how they overlay a pie icon over every state in the United States.

The data for map campaigns can really be generated from either existing data or surveys. However, the reason we’re giving them their own special category is that they tend to perform really well.

The digital PR process

1. Ideation phase

Now that you know the general types of campaigns, it’s time to start thinking about which one you’ll want to create. This starts with the ideation process.

Ideally, you’ll want to ideate anywhere from 3-5 different campaign options. By ideating multiple campaigns, you can then compare them against each other to determine which one will most likely generate the most coverage and backlinks for your brand.

2. Publish the campaign: design & blog phase

Now comes the exciting part! You get to transform your campaign from a bunch of raw data in a spreadsheet to beautifully designed graphics that live on a page of your site.

The campaign should be added as a blog post to your site and consist of two components:

1.Custom graphics that highlight your data insights

2.Copy that provides more detail about the research and findings.

3. Build an outreach list

After publishing your campaign, you’re then ready to start the pitching process by finding relevant journalists to pitch to. The easiest way to do this is to use some type of media database. 

4. Pitching phase

The final part of any good digital PR campaign is the pitching process, where we take all of the journalist’s contact information we just collected and begin to reach out to them.