A Guide to Digital PR for eCommerce Brands in 2024

When it comes to consumer habits in 2024 and beyond, customers need to know that the brands they’re spending their hard-earned cash with have their best interests in mind. In fact, 67% of consumers must trust a brand before continuing to buy its products or services. So, how exactly do brands build that trust? This is a particular issue for businesses in the saturated eCommerce space that might not have a brick-and-mortar presence, and where the battle for consumer attention is rife. 

Digital PR can be a really powerful tool for eCommerce brands to promote their products and services, build awareness, and foster that all-important trust. Read on to find out how to implement effective product promotion, utilise internal data, and bolster SEO efforts to ensure your eCommerce brand’s success in the increasingly competitive landscape.

Contents

1. What is digital PR?
2. How can eCommerce brands use digital PR?
3. How to monitor and measure your digital PR success
4. Conclusion

What is digital PR for eCommerce?

Digital PR (Public Relations) describes a variety of communication tactics that aim to enhance the visibility and reputation of a brand, individual, or organisation within the digital space. Unlike traditional PR, which typically focuses on press release distribution to traditional media outlets like TV, radio and print newspapers, digital PR leverages online platforms – including news outlets, social media and influencers – to communicate a brand’s story and messaging.

A crucial aspect of digital PR for eCommerce is content creation. Brands create engaging, high-quality content – from blog posts and articles to infographics, videos, and podcasts – that provides value to their audience, fosters engagement, and strengthens brand identity. 

Digital PR can also be an incredibly effective tool in boosting eCommerce businesses’ SEO efforts. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is all about improving a website’s visibility on search engines, and digital PR can play a key role in enhancing these results. A strong digital PR strategy can help brands earn valuable backlinks, which are essential for improving an eCommerce website’s search engine ranking and visibility. These backlinks are crucial because search engines like Google view them as a vote of confidence in your content’s quality and relevance. Numerous high-quality backlinks from reputable websites can significantly improve your eCommerce website’s domain authority and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), leading to increased traffic and visibility.

How can eCommerce brands use digital PR?

The eCommerce landscape is getting increasingly competitive, so brands need more than just a basic online presence to stand out. In fact, if there’s anything the last few years have shown us, digital PR is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’; it’s a must for eCommerce businesses aiming for exponential growth and brand recognition.

Digital PR takes everything you already know about traditional PR and leverages those tried and tested techniques specifically for online channels. It’s all about creating a strong digital footprint, boosting brand awareness, and establishing credibility among target audiences. 

For eCommerce brands, a robust Digital PR strategy can help build and bolster relationships with customers, improve online visibility, and enhance SEO performance. When you get the recipe just right, a successful digital PR strategy could ultimately help boost sales, therefore providing a tangible business impact. 

In the following sections, we’ll explore actionable tactics to harness the power of digital PR and steer your eCommerce brand towards online success. 

Build brand awareness

Digital PR can be instrumental in building brand awareness, which is the extent to which consumers are familiar with a particular brand’s goods or services. Building brand awareness isn’t achieved overnight but is the result of consistent and strategic digital PR efforts. 

Creating valuable, engaging content tailored to your target audience is a significant aspect of building brand awareness. This might include blog posts, e-books, infographics, videos, webinars, podcasts, or any other content that provides value to your audience. When launching a new product or announcing significant updates, a well-crafted press release can secure coverage in notable online publications, for example. This not only helps spread the word about your brand to a wider audience but also builds credibility.

Collaborating with influencers in your industry can also significantly boost your brand’s visibility. Influencers’ endorsements can expose your brand to an entirely new audience and lend credibility to your products or services due to their established trust with their following.

Promote your products

One of the key advantages of implementing a digital PR strategy for eCommerce businesses lies in the potential it provides for effective product promotion. If you’re an eCommerce business wanting to see your products showcased on high authority media platforms that are read by thousands – or even millions – of potential customers, this is a tactic you can’t afford to miss out on. 

Lots of journalists specialise in creating content centred on shopping, including product reviews, round-ups, and gift guides for special occasions. These writers are always in search of new and exciting products to try out and feature in their articles.

Shopping guides surge in popularity leading up to significant annual events like Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s Day, for example. Digital PR professionals have the contacts and know-how to get your brand in front of the right people so that your products are taken into consideration.

Utilise internal data and research

A robust digital PR strategy can significantly help eCommerce brands leverage their internal data and research. The power of data is unquestionable, yet it’s the goldmine that often goes underutilised in PR activity. However, integrating data-driven insights into your strategy can unlock untapped potential and steer your brand toward unparalleled growth.

For starters, internal data is an excellent resource for identifying and crafting compelling stories that resonate with your audience. Your sales data, customer behaviour patterns, or even something as simple as your website traffic analytics can form the basis of impactful narratives that grab the media’s attention and appeal to your customers. Sharing insights about emerging trends in your product sales or providing industry-specific data that your company has extracted can spark the interest of journalists, leading to more coverage opportunities and therefore enhanced brand exposure.

Your data can also guide your PR tactics. By analysing customer feedback and purchase history, you can understand what matters most to your audience, what prompts them to make a purchase, or what they feel is missing in the market. This enables you to tailor your PR and marketing messaging to address their needs, desires, and concerns, ultimately leading to more effective and personalised PR campaigns.

Strengthen SEO efforts

By integrating digital PR into your broader SEO strategy, you can build a strong online presence that not only boosts your brand recognition but also drives sustainable, organic growth for your eCommerce business.

One of the primary ways that digital PR strengthens SEO is through the generation of high-quality backlinks. When reputable external sites, like news websites, link back to your eCommerce site, search engines perceive your site as more authoritative and credible, which ultimately improves your ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords. Digital PR strategies such as participating in expert roundups or getting product features in online reviews can help secure these valuable backlinks.

Digital PR also helps manage your online reputation – another crucial factor for SEO. Positive reviews and ratings boost your SEO as search engines consider these as signs of a reliable and trusted business. Regularly monitoring and responding to feedback, whether positive or negative, helps maintain a positive online reputation.

And if you have physical stores, digital PR can aid local SEO. Features in local news outlets or collaborations with local influencers can increase your visibility in local search results and support your eCommerce SEO goals.

How to monitor and measure your digital PR success

Monitoring and measuring digital PR success is essential for eCommerce brands to understand the impact of their efforts and adjust their strategies for optimal results. Here are some ways to achieve this: 

Set clear, measurable goals: 

Before starting any digital PR campaign, it’s important to establish clear, measurable objectives. Whether it’s increasing website traffic, boosting sales, enhancing brand visibility, or improving SEO rankings, having clear goals will guide your PR efforts. 

Track website traffic:

Using tools like Google Analytics, brands can monitor the amount of traffic their website receives from their digital PR efforts. They can track metrics such as the number of visitors, page views, and organic sessions. This helps in understanding which PR strategies and campaigns are driving the most traffic to their website.

Monitor backlinks:

Backlinks from high-authority websites not only improve SEO rankings but also drive valuable traffic to your site. Tools like Ahrefs or Moz can help track the quantity and quality of backlinks earned through your digital PR efforts.

Online sentiment analysis:

Some tools can conduct sentiment analysis, which helps to gauge public opinion about your brand by analysing online reviews, comments, and discussions about your company, its products and services.

Competitor analysis:

Keeping an eye on competitors’ digital PR strategies can also provide valuable insights. Tools like SEMRush offer competitor analysis features that can help you understand where you stand in your industry.

Track sales and conversions:

Ultimately, one of the key indicators of a successful digital PR campaign is an increase in sales and conversions. However, it’s important to remember that this isn’t going to happen overnight, but usually as a result of a long-term, consistent digital PR strategy. Using website analytics, brands can track conversions resulting from their PR efforts.

Conclusion

As digital landscapes continue to evolve and shape the way we do business, especially in the eCommerce realm, digital PR proves to be pivotal for success. Therefore, embracing a digital PR strategy becomes more than just an option – it’s a necessity that can propel your brand to new heights.

By understanding the concept of digital PR, leveraging its tactics effectively, and continuously monitoring and measuring the success of your campaigns, you can enhance your brand’s online visibility, foster deeper customer relationships, and ultimately spark significant growth in your eCommerce venture.

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