Most people discover brands online, so crafting an effective digital PR strategy is crucial. To help illustrate what works, this article will showcase several digital PR examples.
A successful campaign involves creating high-quality digital content that is valuable to your audience. But crafting a compelling story that speaks to your audience can be challenging, but that’s why we’re here to help.
Let’s take a look at well-executed digital PR examples to help inspire your brand’s next digital PR campaign.
What Is Digital PR?
Digital PR is the strategic approach to building a brand presence online. It helps brands boost credibility, increase visibility, and foster meaningful connections with their target audiences. Unlike traditional PR, which focuses on print media, broadcast, and direct media outreach, digital PR leverages the internet and digital platforms to achieve its goals.
Most Common Digital PR Techniques
Stellar copy is key to digital PR, but to achieve the best results, you also need to combine it with techniques.
Some successful techniques include:
- Maps and city studies: This method visually compares data by cities, states, and countries, making it a great way to gain regional news coverage.
- Data studies: Turns large amounts of data into shareable stories to uncover valuable insights about your industry or brand niche.
- Interactives: High-effort, high-reward content that includes things like quizzes, games, and clickable maps.
- Newsjacking: Commenting on trending news stories to promote your brand alongside current events.
Digital PR Examples That Work
Now that you understand digital PR let’s examine some successful digital PR campaign examples to get your creative juices flowing.
Best Cities for Pizza by Pizzello
A company that specializes in selling pizza ovens, Pizzello, launched its “A Slice Above” campaign to uncover the top 250 cities in the U.S. with the best pizzerias. The marketing company responsible for this campaign collected data from Google reviews of pizzerias across the country and then created a ranking. From there, they contacted regional-specific journalists to write articles about their cities’ rankings.
A well-timed PR push that aligned with National Pizza Day, Pizzello’s campaign blends data with a fun topic to drive brand recognition and traffic to its website.
This campaign generated over 186 backlinks, received TV coverage, and became viral across social media. In addition, the visual asset page that illustrates the data ranked for over 450 keywords and drove organic traffic to the website.
Contest and Giveaway Statistics by Opinion Stage
Opinion Stage is an interactive quiz, poll, and survey-maker tool. Its article on contest and giveaway statistics is another example of a successful digital PR campaign that uses data to tell a story. The data was sourced from existing data studies, marketing platforms, and internal analysis.
Statistical articles are incredibly useful, and anyone writing about contests and giveaways will likely reference a statistical post to provide an example or prove an argument. This post covers everything from general giveaway statistics to email marketing and social media giveaway statistics, using informative bar charts to break down the data and convey how effective giveaways and contests are in marketing campaigns.
Because it offers value to marketers, the article received natural links from several prominent websites, including Entrpreneur.com.
UGC Statistics by Billo
Billo is a platform for sourcing user-generated content (UGC) for social media ads. Its article on UGC statistics compiles over 40 interesting data points from diverse online sources.
When creating statistical articles, companies can anonymize existing proprietary data, collect new data through surveys, or research publicly available data. This digital PR example uses the latter method, which is often the easiest and most cost-effective to replicate.
This article was referenced by several media sources and prominent marketing websites such as Backlinko.
Savings Calculator by Bankrate
Bankrate is a personal finance company that provides tools and guidance to help consumers make smarter financial decisions. One of their helpful tools is a savings calculator that makes it easy to accurately estimate your investment growth over time.
Interactive content like this provides consumers with valuable information while being incredibly linkable.
This calculator received links from over 400 unique domains. Plus, it conveys Bankrate’s commitment to helping people achieve financial well-being.
Business Name Generator by Shopify
This business name generator by the e-commerce platform Shopify is another example of an interactive done right. An AI tool, the generator creates a name for your new business in a matter of seconds. From there, Shopify can help you secure the domain name and start your small business.
Shopify uses its name generator to show its value and attract potential clients. In addition, it received thousands of backlinks, including from Search Engine Journal, Wikihow, Fortune.com, and Bluehost.
World Map of Country Names by CreditCardCompare.com.au
An Australian credit card comparison site, Credit Card Compare, understands that its website is used by those who like to travel to research and compare travel-related credit card rewards.
So, it created a world map showing the literal translation of country names. This fun, colorful map gives travelers insight into a country’s history and its people to help prepare them for their next adventure.
This campaign garnered considerable interest far beyond Australia. The story was picked up and featured on travel sites such as Lonely Planet and popular media websites such as Forbes.
States with the Most Dogs by Zippia
A job search website, Zippia, put together its “States with the Most Dogs” campaign to see how many US citizens spend their hard-earned paychecks on their furry four-legged friends.
Using reputable sources, such as the American Kennel Club, Zippia sifted through tons of data to find the percentage of pet-owning homes and the average amount of money spent on pets per household.
The post broke down the data using graphs and maps of the U.S.
The playful story angle and colorful visuals were picked up by the local media and popular pet websites.
Global Banking Annual Review by McKinsey & Company
McKinsey & Company, a multinational consulting firm, has published this industry analysis every year since 2014 to add value to the world of banking. Their comprehensive review uses graphs and other visuals to break down the information and provide key takeaways.
Data studies are great at offering value to those in your industry, especially when you choose a topic that is worth following throughout the years. Plus, publishing them in a readable and easily digestible format can be a great source for links. This campaign generated over 1,000 backlinks, including links from Bloomberg, Business Insider, Harvard Business School, and Reuters.
McDonald’s Newsjacking by Wendy’s
Infamous for its sassy online banter, fast food chain Wendy’s has fun throwing shade at rival McDonald’s on social media.
To achieve this successful PR campaign example, Wendy’s followed some newsjacking best practices to boost its brand awareness on social media.
By immediately commenting on the McDonald’s ad campaign, Wendy’s was quick on the draw and used its unique voice to take a playful jab at the campaign’s marketing language. The result was an increase in engagement on social media, with thousands of positive reactions, comments, and reposts.
Wendy’s team has been newsjacking for years, from commenting on record-breaking temperature lows to the elections, they know how to join in on popular conversations.
Building Relationships With Journalists By Sneha Saigal
Sneha Saigal is the co-founder and CEO of Geeks & Experts, a platform for hiring PR talent on a contract basis. In contrast to the other digital PR ideas, which are based on creating an interesting asset to attract attention, Sneha proactively connected with journalists and provided value upfront.
“I got a Forbes feature through organic outreach and by proactively pitching my startup to the journalist. I followed up very mindfully, sharing resources, making introductions, and adding value to the journalist.
Initially, the journalist responded that we weren’t a good fit for Forbes yet, and I decided to wait and create some case studies and reach out again after a few weeks because a “not yet” is not a “no, never”.
When the time was right, the journalist responded, and I had all the material ready to share.”
This approach is relatively difficult to scale because you need to tailor your pitches to certain media outlets and even to particular journalists. Preparing several pitch angles in advance and building a media list with contacts relevant to your industry can help you speed up the process.
Tips For Successful Digital PR Campaigns
Now that you have a handful of PR campaign ideas, you need to implement them successfully.
Below are some helpful tips for making your next campaign a hit.
Ensure Email Deliverability
First, you need to ensure email deliverability before starting to reach out to your PR media list about your campaign. Adjust your DMARC settings so that internet service providers trust the emails coming from your domain. This will protect you from phishing attacks and ensure that you remain reputable in the eyes of your media contacts.
Prepare Email Templates
Creating templates for different pitch angles will help you save time and scale your email outreach.
When prepping your templates, use personalization fields to help your emails appear tailor-made for each recipient. Personalized templates make you more likely to grab the attention of journalists and get a reply.
Visualize Your Data
Digital PR campaigns often involve many data sets. Since every data set is unique, it can be helpful to visualize how you plan to convey it to the public.
Your goal is to turn large amounts of data into an engaging story. Visualizing data — like the map from Credit Card Compare and the graphs from McKinsey & Company — makes the story visually appealing and accessible to anyone. Remember to consider your audience to determine what PR technique will work best with your content strategy.
Track Your Results
Tracking your results throughout a digital PR push is crucial as it can provide you with data-driven insights. So be sure to use analytic tools to track the performance of your campaign. Some important metrics that will give you insights into how well your digital public relations campaign is doing include:
- Number of backlinks
- Social media engagement
- Referral traffic
- Number of placements
- Domain authority
- Brand mentions
- Keyword rankings
- Conversion rates
Plan Your Digital PR Campaign
When brainstorming your next digital PR campaign, keep the above tips and PR campaign ideas in mind.
Successful campaigns can significantly boost your brand’s visibility and reputation, so be strategic in your approach to ensure your efforts are targeted, effective, and measurable.
Elevate your digital PR efforts and try out Determ for free today.
Author bio Evelina Milenova is the SEO and Growth Manager at Opinion Stage. She has worked on social listening and crisis management projects for companies such as Ferrero Group, Nissan, and Merck, among others. Evelina shares her insights on SEO and content marketing on her LinkedIn page.
