We have just come across an excellent whitepaper written by Daryl Wilcox of Daryl Wilcox Publishing (DWPub).
DWPub provides online services for journalists and media relations specialists and the whitepaper provides a very interesting read about the future of ‘traditional’ PR, starting with an interesting conjecture regarding the year 2017, where:
- The Chartered Institute of Search Marketers (fictional) is celebrating growing to double the peak size of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (not fictional)
- Only 3 national newspapers still publish a daily print edition
- Tabloids have become weekly magazines that have been overtaken by their online versions
- Companies are spending over 50% of their marketing budgets online
An interesting vision, perhaps the only issue we have is whether only 50% of marketing budgets will be spent online, especially given the recent IAB results.
At Browser Media, we have always believed that SEO is very closely aligned with PR. Aside from the requirement to have a technical understanding of how a website works and how search engine spiders ‘see’ a website, good SEO is all about spreading the word through online channels. The more buzz you can create online about a website, the more likely it is that the search engines will notice you and promote your site.
It is therefore a source of constant surprise that so many traditional PR agencies have failed to grasp the importance of online marketing, and search engine marketing in particular.
Daryl’s whitepaper is written for the PR community, but displays an excellent appreciation of the value that search engine marketing offers.
No doubt an alarming read for those PR agencies who have, to date, failed to adapt to the declining importance of ‘traditional’ media (especially print media), but a very worth read.
Perhaps the only area where we would disagree with the whitepaper is the suggestion that PR agencies would be better at assessing keywords as SEO agencies are only concerned with numbers. We would argue that good search engine marketers are creative people (albeit with a honed ability to digest and evaluate statistics) and that it is often creativity that makes the real difference.
We look forward to 2017 when we can see how accurate Daryl’s forecast proves to be.
