digital-pr
How Traditional PR and Digital PR can work together
Published: 04/03/25 - Updated: 06/03/25
The lines between digital and traditional PR are becoming increasingly blurred. In the past, the approaches and measurables used by each were more easily differentiated. Our continuing integration with the digital world, the expansion of social media, as well as the ever-changing SEO landscape, has meant that how users and brands interact with the media has changed dramatically.
With this in mind, it’s more important than ever that both streams work alongside each other and become more integrated, to keep up with the times and see success.
How do traditional and digital PR differ?
The traditional and digital approach to PR have always shared the same goal of increasing awareness and visibility for brands, products, services and even people. However their approach and goals have varied significantly.
Typically, Traditional PR platforms vary from TV, radio, billboards and print, as well as digital and social media coverage now too. Traditional PR is known for promoting a brand more directly, and can be achieved through events, product reviews, PR stunts and interviews, etc.
For Digital PR, the primary goal is to increase a brand’s visibility in the SERPs, which is done through creating content that will land backlinks in high quality and relevant media publications. Digital PR also aims to increase visibility for ‘non-branded’ key terms, which the public may be searching for online. Creating content and increasing exposure for non-branded terms helps businesses reach more people, which can help increase bottom-line targets such as traffic to site, new customers and sales.
What are the Key Differences Between Digital PR and Traditional PR?
Understanding the strengths of traditional PR and digital PR is essential for effective collaboration.
The top three for us are:
1. Coverage platforms
Traditional PR focuses on print and broadcast media coverage, reputation management, and relationship building with journalists. It relies on press releases, media briefings, and events to shape public perception.
Digital PR typically focuses on digital publications, and also is increasingly aiming to transcend across social media platforms. It integrates SEO strategies and PR tactics to improve a brand’s online visibility.
2. Content sent to the media
Traditional PR typically has a more branded focus, whilst Digital PR has tended to create more editorial stories. Digital PR creates content surrounding a brand’s target keywords, ensuring that the stories created remain relevant to clients.
For example, for a brand like ‘B&Q’ a Digital PR campaign may focus on 50 of the most popular DIY home improvements the UK is doing in 2025. It’s not promoting a direct product of B&Q, or even the brand itself. By generating content like this, we’re getting B&Q to start building their visibility for terms around home DIY tools and products in the SERPs, whilst also gaining brand awareness in the media, who like to cover these kinds of stories.
3. Measuring success
Digital PR can be measured with a variety of metrics. Top-level KPIs can be similar to traditional PR, such as coverage, and brand visibility. However, with businesses looking for more bottom-line impact, Digital PR can also be measured on the impact of backlinks through keyword ranking improvements, visibility in the SERPs, traffic and sales.
Looking into the future, traditional and digital PR goals are becoming increasingly blurred, meaning it’s more important than ever that we take learnings from one another.
For digital PRs, thinking about usefulness, brand authenticity and raising awareness is key moving forward. Adopting a variety of approaches that traditional PRs use including stunts and events, for example, could be a great tactic for digital PRs wanting to expand their offering and also measure performance using digital KPIs.
As the world becomes increasingly digitised, traditional PRs are landing more and more digital coverage, however may not be getting the full SEO benefits. They can make their campaigns go further by measuring the number of backlinks they have pointing to their brand’s site. Or if a journalist has included a mention, simply ask them to add a backlink into the copy. This can add some SEO value to your initial traditional PR campaign.
There are signs that both are slowly beginning to learn the value of the other’s craft. We’re not there yet though!
When digital PR and traditional PR work together, businesses can achieve broader exposure, improved credibility, and increased online visibility. By leveraging the strengths of both approaches, brands can ensure their PR efforts are not only impactful but optimised for long-term success.
Building a Unified PR Strategy
Traditional and digital PR teams still face some resistance to collaborating. However, when they do collaborate, they can deliver stronger, more impactful campaigns. By integrating efforts, businesses can maximise exposure, enhance credibility, and improve search rankings while maintaining strong relationships with the press and key stakeholders.
For digital PR and traditional PR teams to collaborate effectively, businesses should consider the following:
- PR strategies should be developed with input from both digital and traditional teams to align messaging and goals.
- Regular knowledge sharing between teams ensures that traditional PR benefits from SEO data while digital PR capitalises on established media relationships.
- The PR teams should amplify each other’s efforts, ensuring that online content gets media attention and traditional media wins gain digital traction.
- This unified approach ensures that messaging remains consistent across print, online, and social platforms.
Our digital PR team works collaboratively with in-house PR teams to make sure we are delivering the best possible results for our clients. Want to know what we can do for you? Contact us today.
Marina Plummer
Marina has been at Kaizen for over four years now and has nearly a decade of experience in Digital PR. Marina has nurtured and grown some of Kaizen’s longest-standing clients, producing award-winning campaigns across her career. Her experience spans a breadth of industries from automotive, fintech, insurance, e-commerce, health and lifestyle. Her current role at Kaizen focuses on having an eye for what makes a newsworthy campaign as the media landscape continues to evolve, managing a team to deliver the highest standard of work for our clients and reporting on the value of what we do with an SEO hat on.