Digital PR is an important part of a well-rounded growth marketing strategy. It helps broadcast your brand across third-party websites and can help you develop greater credibility with your target audience.
While online public relations is a powerful tool, you can’t engage in digital PR by simply flipping a switch or pressing a button. Often working with a reputable Digital PR agency is the best way to make the most of your outward-facing marketing efforts.
Here are 10 of the top digital PR services to consider in 2024, along with some additional thoughts on how to vet them, other digital PR tools to consider, and answers to some of the top frequently asked questions on the topic.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
First, we have the services themselves. Here they are, along with a few thoughts on their strengths and a quick summary of each service.
Overview and strengths: A growth marketing agency with a thorough approach to digital PR that integrates the marketing discipline with SEO and content creation to build credibility, visibility, and authority for a brand.
Summary: Relevance (ranked 88th on the 2023 Inc. 5000 list) is a full-service growth marketing agency. Digital PR is a central cog in its strategic approach to holistic marketing. Cultivating earned media helps establish credibility with key demographics and target audience segments.
The marketing experts at Relevance incorporate digital marketing into a larger strategy that also builds up visibility through SEO and authority through content. Effective digital PR on relevant, high-level publications is a synergistic element that helps these other aspects of marketing work together, accelerating a brand’s growth in the process.
Overview and strengths: A flexible digital PR firm with custom strategies for any size enterprise and a track record of client mentions in high-profile publications.
Summary: As another leading digital PR agency, Adogy’s strength comes from its well-established network of media outlets and journalists. This makes it easy to surround a brand with third-party buzz.
Adogy leverages high-quality articles to land premium brand placements and mentions. This organically puts the online spotlight on each of their clients. The service’s 90% pitch success rate demonstrates its team’s ability to execute digital PR strategies and create bonafide results.
Overview and strengths: A PR agency specializing in building brands’ public profiles and thought leadership positioning in the finance, public policy, and B2B tech sectors.
Summary: Fifth Avenue Brands’ digital PR goal is thought leadership. The agency engages in media relations and financial communications that broadcast brand messaging and build awareness across the finance, public, and tech sectors.
Led by CEO Richard Lorenzen, 5th Avenue Brand’s team of seasoned PR professionals also engages in strategic planning to take advantage of every marketing opportunity. Risk mitigation and crisis communications are also critical in this area of business and are key aspects of the brand’s digital PR services.
Overview and strengths: A PR firm dedicated to promoting positive messaging while maintaining and enhancing privacy on both personal and company-wide levels.
Summary: At first glance, BrandYourself is a PR agency dedicated to personal branding. However, the company has services for both professionals and their companies. These include strategic support to boost Google placement and build brand awareness.
Along with these common digital PR offerings, BrandYourself focuses on cleaning up its clients’ social media profiles and overall image. For instance, it removes posts with the potential to damage an individual or brand’s image. The PR agency also helps with PR in the opposite direction by reducing the publicity of key information, such as addresses, birth dates, and contact information, when necessary.
Overview and strengths: A PR firm that streamlines and bolsters a brand’s digital PR by building leadership confidence and giving C-suite members insights into and control over the metrics that matter for promotional success.
Summary: Reputation Economy Advisors provides a model of trickle-down digital PR solutions. The company’s veteran PR team focuses on supporting leaders and encouraging them to embrace and champion positive change in the area of brand reputation management.
The PR firm is focused on easing leadership concerns over reputation management and providing oft-elusive solutions to those risk concerns. It does so by identifying the reputation metrics that matter. From there, it comes alongside leaders and helps them glean actionable insights from that information to guide their brand’s promotional efforts.
Overview and strengths: A firm with a focus on digital asset optimization, including an emphasis on digital PR as a way to connect brands with their target audiences.
Summary: Terakeet’s approach to digital PR seeks to reach consumers who are conditioned to tune out traditional advertising. The agency focuses on its OAO (owned asset optimization) framework, which starts with understanding audiences and using that data to create a strategy with actionable insights.
Digital PR enters the picture as part of Terakeet’s prioritization of assets by “degree of control.” The agency seeks to categorize digital content into categories of owned, managed, and leveraged. From there, the goal is to create useful connections between a brand and its target audience by populating the internet with high-quality, high-utility content that resonates with consumers.
Overview and strengths: A digital PR firm with a link-building focus that seeks to combine topical authority with SEO value.
Summary: Digital PR can impact many aspects of a marketing plan. One of those is SEO backlink strategy, and Digital Olympus specializes in maximizing backlink impact.
The online PR agency conducts a backlink profile analysis for a brand. From there, it creates a link plan to improve the quality and quantity of links pointing to a brand’s digital assets. Next, the Digital Olympus team outlines requirements, builds out a linking schedule, and monitors link performance to ensure results over time. While this is a specific approach to digital PR, it is a good option for anyone looking to leverage the digital marketing option specifically for link-building purposes.
Overview and strengths: A synergistic PR brand focused on creating quality content to promote via digital PR and influencer channels.
Summary: For Shout Bravo, everything starts with strong content. The company’s PR experts help brands generate high-quality content (worth “shouting” about). This content is original, optimized for a digital format, and focused on a brand’s target audience.
Once created, that content becomes a springboard to generate third-party mentions across the internet. This step is conducted in collaboration with influencers and with link-building in mind.
Overview and strengths: A digital PR firm and marketing agency that specializes in the web3 and crypto spaces.
Summary: If a company is in a niche market, they may want to consider a digital PR firm that specializes in their specific industry. A good example of this is Coinbound. The digital PR firm is a top option for marketing cryptocurrency and web3-based companies.
Coinbound uses a highly integrated promotional approach with strategies that include PR and earned media. The agency has cultivated industry-specific contacts at many of the digital finance world’s top publishers, influencers, and media outlets. Coinbound may be specific to digital PR in the crypto world, but it is an excellent example of hyper-targeted digital PR services in highly competitive markets.
Overview and strengths: A digital marketing agency with a fractionalized, á la carte approach to digital PR.
Summary: Thrive is an ideal option for marketing leaders who have an idea of what they want but who don’t have the time to execute their own vision themselves. The digital marketing agency offers a highly fractionalized and comprehensive number of digital marketing services, many of which fall under the digital PR umbrella.
For instance, companies can sign up for social media reputation management, social media management, and link-building services. By mixing and matching needs, they can create a digital PR support plan that helps them reach their brand’s digital PR needs while still maintaining a certain degree of control.
Digital marketing agencies provide third-party professional support that can shape and guide your public relations efforts. However, there are also many tools that either a partnering agency or your own internal staff can use to enhance your digital PR. Here are a few examples to keep in mind as you craft your digital PR strategy.
What is it? Glimpse is a marketing platform designed to inform and guide content creation. It provides key traffic and trend data that improves the chances that off-site content and mentions perform well.
How does it help with digital PR? Digital PR works best when it’s backed by high-quality, high-value content. This requires a steady stream of content creation that addresses the pain points and interests of your target audience. Glimpse makes it easier to discover those topics and related terms, isolate those with the highest search volume potential, and then focus your content creation in those areas.
What is it? Cision is one of the biggest PR platforms on the internet. The tool is designed to generate massive exposure to journalists and media channels, supercharging digital PR efforts in the process.
How does it help with digital PR? One of the biggest challenges of digital PR is getting content out in front of potential third-party outlets. Cision specializes in broadcasting press releases and related time-sensitive promotional content. That way, journalists and media outlets can quickly become aware of and pick up branded stories that interest their readers.
What is it? A platform designed to streamline the digital PR process and maximize its results. The one-stop PR tool helps with everything from drafting a press release to pitching to media and monitoring media performance.
How does it help with digital PR? Digital PR is a time-intensive activity. Prowly removes much of the burden of the PR process by helping create, pitch, promote, and track digital PR messaging. It is an ideal efficiency tool that works across countless industries, offering genuine PR content and providing data-driven results.
What is it? Muck Rack is a tool designed to monitor your brand’s mentions. The Public Relations Management (PRM) platform helps with pitching, monitoring, and reporting digital PR in a single, comprehensive location.
How does it help with digital PR? Digital PR can be difficult to track. As you design and execute a digital PR campaign, these can quickly spiral into dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of earned media mentions. These aren’t all in a single, convenient location. They’re spread across the internet. Muck Rack helps monitor and track these mentions in a single dashboard.
With so many tools and services available, it can be difficult to narrow your choices and select the right digital PR partner for your marketing needs. Here are a few questions to ask to help you hone in on the best choice for your brand.
Do you know what you need from digital PR?
This is a simple initial question that is worth asking before you go out in search of a digital PR service. Even if you don’t have a precise answer, you want to consider what digital PR is to your marketing team, what media coverage you expect to get from it, and what you’re willing to invest in it. This gives you a clearer picture as you begin to vet various agencies.
Does the PR agency have experience in your industry?
Industry experience matters. Even if a digital public relations agency works with companies across various industries, make sure they have at least a rudimentary understanding of your industry and what creates success in that arena.
Does the PR agency utilize digital PR as part of a larger marketing strategy?
Digital PR is a helpful marketing activity. However, when used in a vacuum, it will only get you so far. Make sure a digital PR agency is willing to leverage earned media as part of a larger growth strategy that includes an emphasis on key pillars, including establishing authority, building credibility, and increasing visibility.
Does the PR agency have a clear approach to PR strategy?
Digital PR isn’t a “shoot from the hip” kind of activity. Any good agency will have a clear methodology and proven formulas and frameworks that they have used to generate success in the past.
Is the PR agency up to date on the latest Google updates?
Google is always changing. The brand’s Helpful Content Update in late 2023 unexpectedly upset the traffic for many well-established websites. Further updates in early 2024 are, once again, shaking up the industry. Make sure a PR agency is familiar with the latest updates and key search engine factors, like Google’s E-E-A-T standards.
Does the PR agency have the right connections?
PR starts with good content, but that won’t help if it doesn’t get published on the right platforms. Whether it’s through tools like Cision or Prowly (see tool recommendations above) or connections with high-profile journalists and media outlets, make sure each PR agency you work with has robust, relevant, and impressive connections to help get the word out about your brand.
Can the PR agency track metrics to prove success?
Data-driven marketing is the only kind of marketing that you can trust. A PR service should always be able to prove its impact on your brand through rock-solid data. The specific metrics may vary from one situation and agency to the next, and that’s fine. Just make sure you’re comfortable with how they can prove their success over time.
Something as complex as partnering with a third-party agency for digital PR always creates an endless stream of questions. Here are some of the most common inquiries, along with some basic answers.
Digital PR is a complex and nuanced activity. Working with a digital PR agency can help you reduce wasted time and resources and maximize the impact of this powerful online promotional channel.
Use the tips and suggestions above to identify the best digital PR service for your company. Then, reach out and initiate the process of collaborating to ensure your brand is effectively earning media as part of a holistic growth marketing strategy built for maximum long-term impact.
