4 reasons PR pros should consider pay-per-click

In an increasingly complex digital climate, PR pros are often responsible for social media, influencer marketing and personal branding.

More and more, creative tactics are needed to land campaigns—and to plan and measure them.

How can you amplify your organization’s messages and remain part of the digital conversation?

Here are a few tips for effectively using search tactics, obtaining meaningful data and increasing your interaction:

1. Test your messaging.

The beauty of setting up a pay-per-click search campaign is that you can see results come through as soon as the ads are approved by Google or Bing.

Plan to run multiple ads before a big campaign or product launch. Using relevant keywords can help you determine which content your target audience finds most engaging.

2. Get immediate visibility.

Although generating consistently high-quality content through SEO, Google and Bing will index your new product or services pages more quickly, that doesn’t mean those pages will rank higher in search results.

RELATED: Learn to produce newscast-ready video and B-roll that media notice and fans share.

If your PR activities are gaining traction and your website is gaining relevant links, setting up a pay-per-click campaign will help you capture additional searches. Often, it’ll help you reach consumers who might have heard about you on television or social media.

3. Respond quickly in a crisis.

In crisis communications, PPC ads can help spread information to people who are searching for your company or team members.

PPC ads tend to rank higher than news items. Invest in your ranking if you often respond to controversy or backlash with a link to a press release or blog post statement.

4. Promote your subject matter experts.

Your organization probably has plenty of experts to handle questions from journalists and bloggers. Depending on their areas of expertise, one way to make your brand stand out is to bid on related keywords and promote your people.

Nielsen reports that people tend to trust people more than brand messages. Adding a “people power” element to your PR plan and promoting them through PPC on search engines is an excellent way to reach consumers.

PR pros use search engines to collect insight and data to plan, validate and summarize the success of their campaigns. Understanding the customer journey is just as important as the campaign itself.

Geoffrey Colon is a communications designer at Microsoft and heads up social media at Bing Ads. He’s the author of “ Disruptive Marketing .”

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