Over the past month, we have spent time discussing the benefits of Digital PR, looking at how to establish your online identity, embrace digital PR, improve traffic to your website and benchmark your brand’s digital footprint. As a communications agency, we’ve covered a lot of ground about how to build a successful communications campaign that expands beyond just media coverage and column inches.
It is all well and good to say that the future of PR lies in the digital age, but without practical examples, there is no proof of this. Fortunately, we have seen with our own eyes the wonders that Digital PR can have on a brand over time. So this week, we’ll show rather than tell via one of our very own success story clients, Lloyd Edge, and one of Australia’s most love alcohol brands Brookie’s Gin.
Case study – Lloyd Edge
Lloyd Edge, Director and Founder of Aus Property Professionals, is a buyer’s agent and property strategist. Lloyd connected with our communications agency to launch his book Positively Geared, grow his profile as an industry leader within the property sector and drive traffic and sales to his website. At the beginning of this campaign, Agent99 benchmarked Lloyd’s domain, traffic and rankings (along with other metrics) to understand his brand’s digital presence, and accurately measure success during the book launch.
Unfortunately, for Lloyd’s campaign, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived unexpectedly, coinciding with the launch of his book. Due to the news cycle and sensitives of the time, promoting an expert’s new book was deemed inappropriate by Agent99, so the launch itself was put on hold. Instead, Agent99 devised an alternative communications strategy that offered time-poor journalists a down to earth property expert to answer pressing questions about the state of the market in a very turbulent environment. This helped to build valuable long-term media relationships so that when Agent99 felt the media market was ready, Lloyd had already been established as a trustworthy source with journalists.
Following a slightly delayed, yet exceptionally successful book launch, saw Lloyd’s book Positively Geared placed as Amazon’s #1 in the Property vertical. Lloyd also saw an increase in his domain authority, page rankings on Google and social followings. The three-month-long communications campaign reached over 102 million people, with 45 pieces of earned media pieces which included relevant links back to Lloyd’s website. This saw the website traffic and enquiries for Aus Property Professionals, Lloyd’s company, triple in the following 12 months.
In addition, the digital exposure of Agent99’s efforts contributed to a large spike in book sales, via online and physical stores. As discussed previously, building a strong digital presence helps to increase your SEO ranking and visibility among your competitors, now and into the future. As a communications agency, this is a key goal for us and through building Lloyd’s digital footprint he received a 37% total share of voice in the media, compared to his four main competitors.
It is clear to see in this communications campaign, that there is a correlation between Lloyd’s digital footprint, achieved through backlinks, keywords, and increased share of voice, to the success of his business.
There has long been discussion around whether the effectiveness of PR can be measured. Yet, as we continue to expand into the digital age, we can devise KPIs that are not only quantifiable but link directly to the growth of an organisation as is visible in Lloyd’s case.
Case study – Brookie’s Gin
Brookie’s, Cape Byron Gin Distiller, engaged our communications agency to help raise awareness of their core product range and increase sales. One of our key objectives in this campaign was to drive online and in-store traffic to retailers during the course of the project.
The ensuing results from this communications campaign truly highlight the value and power of digital PR. Using Google Analytics and benchmarking Brookie’s site authority, we identified that the Cape Bryon Distillery experienced a 307% increase in online sales during the campaign period vs 2019. Furthermore, we were able to see that website traffic spiked during key coverage times by 5% to 10%, which can be greatly attributed to backlinks in online earned media.
The total campaign reached a cracking audience of 48 million, which helped to drive people over to Brookie’s website or guide them into Dan Murphy’s as the retailer.
So, there you have it, the real-life examples of how digital PR is helping businesses gain exposure in their industry. It’s easy to find digital terminology like site authority, SEO and, benchmarking overwhelming, trust me I certainly do. Yet, it is not until you see the practical outcomes, like in Lloyd’s and Brookie’s case studies, that the pieces really come together to show you just what an important investment it is.
Don’t get me wrong, I love getting great media coverage for our clients, it’s an important part of our jobs and I still get an absolute rush every time I see it. But seeing the tangible outcomes of digital PR on my client’s growth story is truly the future of PR.
If you would like to read more about Agent99’s digital communications services, please email the team at info@agent99pr.com .
By Agent Eva
