How Marketing Works With Press Coverage To Boost Traffic To A Website

In this article I want to show, using a personal example, how the right press can help your website reach more people by using principles from PR and digital marketing.

Back in late 2016 I wrote about PR's role in digital marketing, how the two concentrations now overlap in terms of skill-sets and what they do day-to-day. But still, as I said in the article, they have distinct strengths which helps the other achieve their goal, "Where PR excels in storytelling, marketing excels in reaching and targeting."

Tinley Park Mom

For those of you know don't know, I created a mom blog back in May of 2017. I also manage a Facebook group and social media profiles, which are extensions of my brand called Tinley Park Mom. I had been written about by the local newspaper The Tinley Junction and a mom site called Mommikin back in 2018. But the latest write-up on me drove visitors to my website more so than the previous two profiles put together!

What The Analytics Reveal

The article went up on the Tinley Park Patch's website mid-noon on Thursday, March 7, 2019, the day before International Women's Day. From the previous week, traffic to the Tinley Park Mom website went up 33.33% from the day the article went up on their site to the same day this week March 14, 2019, one week later. Why did more traffic come from the Patch article? The answer: 

• Newsletter Marketing - The patch sends out daily, weekly, and monthly newsletters listing new stories.
• Captivating Writing - From the title headline to the last sentence, the editor of the patch, Erika Hobbs made her subjective matter jump off the page and grabbed readers.

With a title like Tinley Park Mom Stephanie Pyrzynski: Someone You Should Know which is both very attention getting and strong from an SEO standpoint, it's really not hard to imagine why after the article came out search queries for me 'Stephanie Pyrzynski' went up by 31.08% as well. People went searching for who I am and the blog on Google because of this article, and that's powerful how a well told story can elicit that strong a response. I also saw an increase in likes of my Facebook page by 10% and requests to join the Tinley Park Moms Facebook group by 20%. Without strong writing the newsletter marketing wouldn't have a leg to stand on. You have to be ready with good content when people find it. The Patch also shared the story on their social media as well, social media is not a platform to forget for distributing content.

Why do I think that using newsletter marketing to target relevant readers (residents of Tinley) was huge in getting the article its visibility? I received several e-mails where people forwarded the e-mail they received from the Patch and my story was in both the Subject of the e-mail, my article was at the top of the e-mail for "Today's Top News". That was probably the biggest aspect of the newsletter marketing that helped the article perform so well for my website and social media most definitely. 

Lesson

Using newsletter marketing is a great way to get your content seen, but make sure your content is good and ready for people to enjoy. Also, investing in getting press coverage is valuable. Especially local press,  since you wouldn't want people half way across the country seeing a piece on you. You want relevant audiences learning about you because they are more likely to take an action you want, like contacting you or buying from you. And don't discount the power of SEO; insuring that your content get's found past the bubble of initial release depends on investing in good search terms. Make sure to communicate to whomever is writing about you to use at least one key phrase like location such "Tinley Park Mom" to fit with your name in the title of your article. 

So that is how digital marketing works with PR press coverage to boost traffic to a website. They are a powerful duo that can benefit your company.