Press PR and its effect on website traffic

Have you heard the one about the online business that tried and tried and tried, for months and months and months, to get a mention in a national newspaper? And then when they finally did, it added hardly any extra visitors to their website? We have a few clients that experienced this recently and we thought it was quite interesting.

Have you or any of your clients experienced this unusual phenomenon? Please let us know. We might do a more in depth analysis at some future point.

In the meantime, in the absence of any reliable scientific (or otherwise) data, we will rely on our own intuition to spew out some easily challengeable observations and conclusions. Blog posts are great aren’t they? Imagine being able to write such opinion-based stuff when you were in college. Thank god these days are behind us :-)

Observations

(Remember, we are focusing here on businesses that generate most or all of their income from online product/service sales. But it also can apply to offline businesses who might think that a PR mention in a newspaper will drive extra traffic to their website.)

Anyway, back to the matter in hand and straight on to our ‘observations’.

• A ‘mention’ isn’t enough. If you happen to get a passing mention in an article and even if your website URL is stated, you will NOT need a new server to cope with the extra traffic.
• The ‘disconnect’ between the newspaper that is being read and the reader’s computer that could be switched off and/or be in a different place is a critical flaw. This is perhaps the most important observation. Your typical ‘data collector’ who reads newspapers, surfs the net, etc. has an attention span that barely surpasses that of a goldfish. The chances of that person retaining the information about your website, the reason why they want to visit it AND the URL would appear to be very low.
• If you haven’t got something unique you are in even more trouble. If the product or service you are promoting is a ‘me-too’ type offering, the value of your offline PR is likely to be pretty low.
• A memorable URL can help your efforts but it would appear to only reduce the effects of the above.
• Newspapers are mostly ‘scan-read’ and there is single layer of information. You begin reading and then you finish. End of experience. Compare that to online information gathering which is multi-layered, journey-like and almost open-ended. If you are an online business, aiming your public relations as directly as possible into that context has to be more beneficial than trying to move people from another context first (and hoping they remember you as they move across)

But… it’s not all bad news. Here are a few other thoughts:

• The rise in smart phone usage could gradually reduce the effect of the ‘disconnect’ issue above as more readers will have a browser easily at hand. But, remember your offer will need to better than just OK in order to get people to browse on a small screen.
• With more and more newspapers mentioning websites, more people are getting tuned in to keeping a ‘future browsing list’ but I for one wouldn’t be pinning my hopes on these ultra-organised types.
• We’re seeing more visual imagery in newspapers and this means that URLs are often appended to product photos and this can also help recall rates. The most successful examples of where offline PR does work for online e-commerce businesses is where brand new, otherwise unique, or heavily discounted products are promoted using photographs. The product pages on in the Irish Indo and Irish Times magazines on a Saturday are good examples.
• Even if you don’t get a website visit from the PR, you will still benefit from the increased awareness of your brand that the PR delivers. The value of this will vary depnding on the extent of the coverage and which business sector you operate in.

Conclusions

• If you have an e-commerce business, do not build your marketing strategy on an aggressive PR strategy aimed at national newspapers unless you have a truly compelling offering.
• Focus your efforts on online PR, particularly if you are paying for the service. Get your website URL into placements where not only is it mentioned, there is a hyperlink directly to your site. This will also benefit your link-building/SEO agenda.
• The observations above would also perhaps add weight to the argument in favour of a particular business pursuing a specific social media strategy.
• If you are going to use a PR agency, then choose wisely. Seek out ones that will suit your online agenda. Have they got specific experience or do they maybe specialise in online PR? Do they use Facebook and Twitter themselves? How credible looking is their own website?

A word on Radio and TV

While not specifically covered here, these media have similar difficulties in terms of the ‘disconnect’ issue and the ability of listeners/viewers to remember websites that have been mentioned.

In their favour however, is the fact that they are more engaging than press. Radio might also offer greater opportunities for someone to also be beside their computer while listening.