In part 4 of our PR blog series, we examine the impact of advertising. Not only does it affect the visibility of your company, it’s also a means of building better, stronger relationships with publications. Additionally, the type of advertisement you use is also important. Continue reading to discover what the respondents of our PR survey personally prefer and our recommendations.
Stronger relations with publications
Advertising often goes hand in hand with publishing articles. If you are a media partner of a magazine, your article is more likely to be published. If you show the magazine some goodwill and you invest in media buying campaigns, you build a better, stronger and long-term relationship. Especially nowadays, many publications are struggling. For this reason, we recommend that you do some advertising to support them and help them move forward to the “new normal” post-pandemic. Trade publications are valuable to the industry, and supporting them is very worthwhile.
That being said, 40% of the journalists that responded to our survey indicated that advertising budget had almost no influence on their decisions about which editorial to cover. But … that leaves 60% that admit that there is some level of influence based on advertising budget. We also saw pleas to support publications through advertising in the free-form comments, which many of our respondents included in the survey.
Type of advertisements
The type of advertising that has the most impact, according to 50% of the respondents, are printed adverts. They are usually more costly than digital forms of advertising, such as e-casts and online banners, but in many cases they are definitely worth the investment. Some respondents (16.8%) chose “other,” and that typically includes a mix of print and digital advertising, with a preference to build a long-term relationship and use tailor-made campaigns. Only about 15% of respondents admitted they discard press releases based on lack of advertising by the issuer, with 40% claiming to be neutral.
It is important to keep in mind that editorial and advertising contacts are usually not the same person at most publications. Therefore, we highly recommend building relationships on both sides of the business, both to support key publications, achieve higher visibility, and build those long-term relationships that really pay off over time.
This concludes the fourth part of our PR series. In the fifth and last part of our series we take a look at what the journalists who participated in our survey believe what the future of press releases holds.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Want to see the other parts?
- In part 1, we looked at methods, best days and times for distribution, and preferred formats.
- In part 2, we discussed how we make the content of press releases more compelling.
- In part 3, we covered the value of visuals in press releases.
- In part 4, we took a look at the importance and added value of advertisements.