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Part 2
In the last blog, I wrote about the rising dominance of Programmatic PR, its advantages over traditional advertising, and the organic benefits it offers to a brand. Today, I will be talking about its benefits for different audiences, in different situations, and how the current environment in the COVID landscape has encouraged brands to finally embrace Programmatic PR.
The larger consensus among PR managers is that for a B2C client, Programmatic has proven to be highly effective for performance than brand marketing. B2B clients are a completely different ball game, and therefore the benefits and challenges also vary accordingly. While in a B2C environment the buying decision-maker is a single entity or an individual, B2B decisions involve a team of people which means that decisions take longer as more people need convincing. B2B conversions are also harder to track given a transaction cannot be credited to a single article, positive impression, or instance.
Programmatic PR for B2B brands, therefore, is an ongoing process that requires the delivery of the PR message through a wider range of content and different platforms over time. Given the longer decision-making process and at times long purchase cycles, the Programmatic PR strategy needs to be more elaborate to nurture the positive impressions for a longer period. Is it a challenge? Yes. But if successfully tackled through an effective Programmatic PR strategy, it can do wonders for a brand’s reputation and business.
In the current environment because of COVID, there has been a significant uptick in brands’ interest in adapting programmatic PR. Brand managers are encouraged to adopt new strategies that they haven’t considered in the past, due to a strong emphasis on return on investment and attribution in marketing budgets. Due to a recession-like environment, where sales are relatively low, brands do not just want the customers to know about them, they also want customers to act on their awareness about them.
Programmatic PR, therefore, with its low-cost methodology and nature of delivering hyper-targeted results, is perfectly suited for the current times. It offers a tremendous bang for the buck, and with people spending more and more time online during the lockdown, there has never been a better time to go programmatic.
Reem Masswadeh is Client Services Director at Cicero & Bernay Public Relations, an independent PR agency headquartered in Dubai offering new-age public relations consultancy to the UAE and across the MENA region. | www.cbpr.me