Inbound PR

The digital era’s new consumer demands a new approach to PR

Inbound PR is the handbook that can transform your agency’s business. Today’s customer is fundamentally different, and traditional PR strategies are falling by the wayside. Nobody wants to feel “marketed to;” we want to make our own choices based on our own research and experiences online. When problems arise, we demand answers on social media, directly engaging the company in front of a global audience. We are the most empowered, sophisticated customer base in the history of PR, and PR professionals must draw upon an enormous breadth of skills and techniques to serve their clients’ interests. Unfortunately, those efforts are becoming increasingly ephemeral and difficult to track using traditional metrics. This book merges content and measurement to give today’s PR agencies a new way to build brands, evaluate performance and track ROI.

The ability to reach the new consumer, build the relationship, and quantify the ROI of PR services allows you to develop an inbound business and the internal capabilities to meet and exceed the needs of the most demanding client. In this digital age of constant contact and worldwide platforms, it’s the only way to sustainably grow your business and expand your reach while bolstering your effectiveness on any platform. This book shows you what you need to know, and gives you a clear framework for putting numbers to reputation.

• Build brand awareness without “marketing to” the audience
• Generate more, higher-quality customer or media leads
• Close the deal and nurture the customer or media relationship
• Track the ROI of each stage in the process

Content is the name of the game now, and PR agencies must be able to prove their worth or risk being swept under with obsolete methods. Inbound PR provides critical guidance for PR growth in the digital era, complete with a practical framework for stimulating that growth.

The New World of Inbound PR: A Foreword vii

Modernizing Public Relations and Marketing: A Foreword ix

Introduction xi

About the Author xvii

Acknowledgments xix

Chapter 1 Getting the Basics: PR and Inbound 1

What Is Public Relations? 3

What Is Inbound? 5

Content: The Glue between Inbound and PR 8

Chapter 2 PR and Measurement 13

The History of Measurement in Public Relations and Communications 15

Inbound Marketing and Measurement 22

The Future of PR Measurement 24

Chapter 3 Inbound PR 33

Why You Need Inbound PR 35

The Inbound PR Concept 39

Benefits of the New Inbound PR Model 41

Why PR Agencies Need to Adopt Inbound PR 45

Chapter 4 How to Do Inbound PR 51

The Inbound PR Methodology 53

How to Run an Inbound PR Campaign 55

Inbound Media Relations 66

The Inbound PR Newsroom 72

How to Create Fascinating Content 77

The Art of Inbound Storytelling 83

Chapter 5 Generating New Business with Inbound PR 89

Practicing What You Preach 91

The Importance of Positioning 94

How to Create Your Agency’s Positioning Strategy 102

How to Do Lead Nurturing and Fill Your Sales Funnel 109

Chapter 6 Delivering Inbound PR to Clients 115

Defining Inbound PR Services 117

Packaging Inbound PR Services 123

Developing Inbound PR Capabilities 126

Delivering Inbound PR Services 129

Conclusions and Key Success Factors 135

Appendix 141

Notes 151

References 155

Index 157

ILIYANA STAREVA is global partner program manager at HubSpot, where she ensures a partner-first approach and enables company teams to collaborate, communicate, and make change happen better across global offices. A fluent speaker and writer in Bulgarian, English, and German, she is the author of Social Media and the Rebirth of PR and Social Media: Key for Sustainability Communications.

Once upon a time, public relations departments and agencies had no way to effectively tell their clients' stories other than through the mainstream media. Journalists, editors, and analysts were ultimately the mouthpieces for every PR campaign. Then came the age of digital disruption and now PR professionals can take full control over their messages, deliver them directly to the intended audiences, and accurately quantify the return on investment. Inbound PR tells the story of how inbound marketing can refresh, expand, and optimize PR for today's connected world.

Written by a global thought leader at HubSpot, the pioneering software company behind inbound marketing, Iliyana Stareva applies her expertise for growing businesses with inbound marketing to PR in an innovative methodology that both grows your PR business and your network of engaged media contacts. This step-by-step road map to amplifying your PR influence to standout levels gives you practical guidance on using the attention-grabbing content you already produce to raise awareness, generate leads, and delight them into followers.

The secret to this game-changing approach is measuring results. Forget about advertising value equivalents that only measure cost, and start calculating the meaningful bottom-line returns your work generates in the four major types of media with a turnkey framework. Specifically written for everyone in the day-to-day mechanisms of PR and especially agency owners, this custom-fit guidebook enables you to embrace metrics and put analytics at the center of your campaigns and organization so that you can make the highly informed, data-based decisions that give state-of-the-art leaders a competitive advantage.

This go-to resource makes transforming your business into an inbound PR agency simple and profitable by giving you:

• A proven, seven-step process for writing the best positioning strategy for your agency and practical advice on defining and packaging Inbound PR services into a twelve-month retainer
• Detailed systems for taking an inbound approach to media relations, including creating a robust online newsroom specifically for journalists, bloggers, producers, etc.
• Actionable guidance for working every step of the inbound process, from attracting leads into your sales funnel, nurturing them, and finally retaining a new client

Stop pushing your message and chasing clients by attracting them all to your brand with Inbound PR.

PRAISE FOR INBOUND PR

"In her Inbound PR book, Iliyana nails the fundamental shifts happening in the PR industry and sets the standard for the PR agency of the future." —BRIAN HALLIGAN, CEO and founder, HubSpot

"Iliyana Stareva shares her modern #InboundPR model for attracting and engaging prospects as part of a sales or marketing campaign. It can be applied equally to consumer or business-to-business campaigns, and organizations large and small. I first met Iliyana in Dublin in October 2015. I sought her out after reading her blog about this innovative approach to public relations. I'm delighted that she has developed it into a book. Make sure that you add it to your reading list." —STEPHEN WADDINGTON, partner and chief engagement officer, Ketchum; visiting professor, Newcastle University

"The PR industry is ripe for disruption. It wasn't all that long ago that the web forced us to reinvent ourselves. It's time again. International PR organizations have called for the death of metrics that don't make business sense, such as media impressions and advertising equivalencies. Smart business leaders have called for metrics, as they relate to real organizational growth. We've been able to add tactics, such as owned and shared media that allow us to prove we are an investment, not an expense, and that we do drive revenue. Yet, because we hate numbers, we have a difficult time drawing the correlation between our work and sales numbers. What Iliyana Stareva preaches with Inbound PR will get us there. Not only is it something we define, highlight, and amplify, it allows for the all-encompassing return-on-investment. As you traverse this book, keep a notebook at your side and outline your plan. By the time you finish, you'll have an Inbound PR program that is effective, efficient, and measurable." —GINI DIETRICH, CEO of Arment Dietrich; founder and author of Spin Sucks

"As a PR Agency, you need to choose between playing it safe with the status quo, or doubling down on your own business and seeing it grow. The Inbound PR book will give you real-world practical advice to allow you to ensure your digital campaigns deliver ROI and promote the success of your agency by covering positioning, closing, and measuring ROI." —KATE WALSH, VP of Global Partner Services, HubSpot

"Iliyana Stareva's thought leadership and understanding are phenomenal. Inbound PR can shape the way consumers interact with what they see, hear and read, empowering the individual to make well-informed opinions whilst creating interesting substance. Iliyana is at the forefront of the industry and appreciates its depths and power. It's amazing how the optimization of digital functions such as SEO and content-rich online material can build an epicenter of media excitement. With all the international work we do at Curzon, we have found Inbound PR to be the most effective and strategic method of communications. This book, is yet again, another articulate display of Iliyana's expertise and insights and leads the way in educating us all on the power of digital marketing and communications." —FARZANA BADUEL, founder and CEO of Curzon PR