That’s not to say setting up specific PR packages should be a primary aim at the outset. The preferred approach should be to ‘mix and match’ offline and online marketing techniques such as article marketing, online PR, newsletters and so on in creative and innovative ways. With a little forward planning, companies and organisations of all types and sizes can benefit from the cost-effectiveness of PR packages and the synergies they generate.

PR packages should follow on from the marketing requirement, and not the other way round. With various PR tools available to achieve this, the flexibility of the available resources and the ease with which they can be combined will ensure that PR packages are a useful starting point for meeting a variety of marketing challenges.

The term ‘online PR’ covers all those techniques that impact on search engine optimisation (SEO) results. This refers to article marketing, online media relations, case study and newsletter copywriting, all of which overlap and benefit from their relevant inclusion in a PR package.

Buzzwords – the UK-based PR and copywriting agency – has devised several options from which clients can benefit. How the various techniques are implemented will vary proportionally according to the aims in view, as the examples below illustrate:

• Combining online media relations with article marketing will increase the number of inbound links to the websites in question and thereby improve SEO. It also creates a double opportunity to generate a stream of valuable publicity and assert a certain ‘authority’ for clients in their particular field.

• Another innovative way to build long-term credibility is through the use of online case studies and their inclusion in annual reports. Everyone knows how powerful the third party endorsements of case studies are. When added to annual reports, their marketing mileage is extended even further.

• To improve corporate communications, printed or online newsletters can be used alongside media relations. In this way, an organisation’s target audiences can be kept fully and regularly informed of financial, marketing, HR and other developments.

• To build on a company’s reputation and generate qualified sales leads at the same time, the use of media relations and case studies is a powerful combination. Both rely on similar raw material to create stories, but both rely for their effectiveness on the information being deployed in different ways and disseminated to different media. Taken together, media relations and case studies should be considered as strategic tools with their own performance targets and KPIs.

• The ultimate option of course is to combine as many marketing elements as necessary in a PR package that optimises the potential of each medium. This cross-fertilisation of ideas and opportunities will bring its own synergy through the cost-effective use of resources which will in turn deliver a greater return on investment.