Where Does a PR Fit Into The Marketing Funnel?
The term PR, Public Relations, is as simple as it states and is an important factor in marketing of any product or service. It is a technique of connecting with public and creating a positive image of your service or product.
One can simply release a book or film, however, what’s the point of doing the same, if no one is aware of the same? Articles / blogs etc are written for the public and you want them to read the same. Until you tell them that ‘look I have written a book about so-so topic’ people may not come to know at all about your book. Thus, PR is important to make the customers aware of service or product, by activities that help build a positive relationship.
Businesses have always used variety of means and tools to create PR. You must have often seen a press release of a film and the actors of the same in some chat show etc; these all are ways of generating curiosity and awareness about your product.
There are numerous positives of good PR activities. It helps in
- Building relationships
- Developing trust
- Increases visibility and brand awareness
- Increases conversion
Its like creating a chain, where you influence the visitor with your content and then divert them into conversion.
What is a marketing funnel?
A marketing funnel is a series of acts/exercise a consumer goes through before finally converting into a lead. Why for that matter a marketing funnel is called funnel and not anything else? For this we need to understand the shape of the funnel. It is wider on top and gradually narrows down. This means that there are many people on top and gradually reduces like a funnel into zeroing into conversion.
How can we get people on the top of the funnel? Bringing people on top is where PR works. Motivating people to pay a visit. Let’s see how PR helps us to get people to be a part of the top of the funnel.
Generating awareness of your company/business/brand. How? Through
- Content marketing
We all know the importance of content marketing by now. The contents, blogs, videos are all means of creating awareness and recognition to your business. All the businesses are doing content marketing, which makes it more important to employ PR.