I was chatting to bigmouthmedia’s Andrew Girdwood in the
lunch break of a Fresh Business Thinking event last Friday and he repeated the
concerns I touched upon in a whitepaper published a year ago about the
tentative future of PR agencies.
Andrew still believes PR agencies are reacting too slowly to
digital media and many will ultimately become obsolete. He also believes PR
agencies need to work harder to communicate with and collaborate with search
marketing agencies, and it’s in their own interests to do so.
To illustrate the point, Andrew gave the example that
effective PR campaigns can trigger a massive increase in searches on the client
brand name. And if the client invests heavily in paid search there can be a
resultant spike in paid search clicks, but with most traffic being driven by
curiosity the conversion rate drops. Suddenly, the client’s investment in paid
search looks very poor, and points the finger unfairly at the search agency.
This is just one example of why PR professionals should
communicate with and collaborate with search marketing. The situation above would
be completely avoided with a bit of advance notice from PR agency to the search
agency.
But the real reason search and PR should buddy-up is that
when they do results can be amplified. The message can be spread further and
wider and online traffic directed to the right place.
You could say that it’s the job of the client to ensure good
intra agency communication. But I don’t believe that. I think it’s in the
interests of all agencies with mutual clients to forge links and share
information – it works for everyone. And only by engaging in digital media, and
working with search agencies is just one part of that, will PR secure its
future as a critical marketing discipline.
