Today’s customers want to ensure they are making the best purchase. Search is essential for how they navigate online, learn about topics, and research products and services. Currently, much of the buyer’s journey begins with a search. This journey is a crucial framework for developing content marketing strategies to guide potential customers from an initial awareness stage to conversion and, ideally, turn them into prosumers.
Public relations have traditionally been seen as a tool for the initial stages of the journey, primarily focused on awareness. However, with advancements in technology, new consumer habits, and the dynamics of digital communication, PR has evolved to play a much more significant role throughout the buyer’s journey.
An optimized public relations strategy guides potential customers through every stage of the cycle to convert them into loyal customers and brand advocates. By developing and promoting valuable multimedia content optimized for SEO and implementing strategies through an integrated approach (owned, earned, shared, and paid media), optimized PR strengthens a brand’s inbound marketing, increasing discoverability across all touchpoints, boosting engagement, and influencing purchase decisions.
Let’s explore the stages of the buyer’s journey and how an optimized PR strategy helps guide both current and potential customers.
Awareness: Identifying a need and searching for solutions
In this first stage, the potential customer realizes they have a problem or need and looks for information to learn more about the issue and how to solve it. The primary touchpoint is online search.
To maximize brand discoverability and engage potential customers at this stage, PR leverages optimized content with relevant keywords that align with search intent, along with backlinks offering further information. This content must be educational, authoritative, and valuable, capable of answering questions and inspiring trust to foster engagement.
PR works to generate brand coverage on platforms with strong domain authority that the target audience reads, watches, or listens to, positioning the brand’s expertise and thought leadership. This coverage can be amplified through social media activities and organic or paid digital influencer marketing.
Consideration: Helping evaluate options
At this stage, potential buyers evaluate the options available to them and need to compare them.
Content should focus on the potential customer’s problem, available solutions (products and services), their benefits, and the opinions of trusted third parties. In the consideration phase, PR also optimizes content with keywords that match search intent and uses backlinks to provide more detailed information about the products and services and the value they offer.
Owned media such as the brand’s website, blog, or social media channels play a vital role. Through a link-building strategy, PR achieves editorial coverage that provides more specific information about the products and services while increasing traffic to the website.
Action: Driving decision-making
In this phase of the journey, the potential customer is ready to become a client. They are familiar with the brand’s offerings and know where to find them, browsing the website. However, they may not yet know exactly what to purchase. PR can provide the necessary content to assist in decision-making.
PR efforts focus on elevating thought leadership by creating and disseminating content that includes comparisons of providers or products from trusted third parties, testimonials, success stories, or free access to demos to serve as resources for decision-making.
During this stage, earned media with strong domain authority is used to promote the company’s success stories and manage its corporate reputation. Shared media refers to content distributed via third-party platforms like social media or shared between multiple owners. This interaction helps build user communities in specific niches where satisfied users can share their experiences (reviews).
Achieving a successful buyer’s journey
Today, successful brands must meet customer demands by providing valuable, engaging content on the right communication channels, at the right time, and for the right reasons. The triad of Public Relations + Content Marketing + SEO has become the cornerstone of more profitable strategies. These strategies use optimized content to guide prospects through the journey, converting them into loyal and satisfied customers.