When you’re a marketing agency juggling multiple clients and their extensive project plans, it’s easy to forget every week that you should still be marketing your own agency. One of the best ways to gain brand awareness and attract the attention of your target audience is to earn press for your agency.
When you’re able to secure press on top-tier media sites (or even secondary media sites), not only is this demonstrating thought leadership for your agency, but the article is also likely going to include a link back to your agency website within the content or in your bio. The link can drive traffic back to your site and also counts as a backlink to your site — a big plus to boost domain authority.
Moral of the story: earned press is good for your brand, all around.
Here are some creative ways to get free press for your marketing agency:
1. Connect with Journalists on Twitter
Twitter is the only social media site where you don’t have to “friend request” someone to connect with them. Therefore, it’s completely appropriate as part of Twitter’s social media etiquette to reach out to people, respond publicly to their tweets and retweet their content. Twitter is an easy avenue to build relationships with reporters who might cover your agency in their content. As long as you provide value and slowly build a genuine relationship through Twitter, this can lead to free press coverage. In addition, many journalists tweet when they are looking for a specific source. Find the journalists covering marketing beats, and put them in a private Twitter list, so you can be sure to monitor their activity and discover opportunities to connect with them.
2. Help A Reporter Out
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is an amazing, free tool created for journalists to find sources they need for articles. It can be used by both journalists looking to find subjects to interview and feature in their stories, and by sources looking to get free press for their business or brand. HARO boasts that more than 35,000 journalists use their service. They send out three digests a day chocked full of what they call “queries” (journalist searching for sources), so there are endless opportunities to earn free press for your business. All you need to do is sign-up for their digests, read them regularly, and submit pitches to the queries that match your brand and messaging goals.
3. Do a Stunt That Aligns with a Marketing Campaign
This tactic is going to be the hardest of the bunch. But, if you’re a creative marketing agency, you just might pull it off. If you have a unique marketing campaign you’re running for one of your clients, consider a stunt integrated into the goals and theme of your campaign that might attract press. Great examples of stunt-based press tactics are the No Pants Subway Ride staged by Improv Everywhere, the $17.5-million jewel-encrusted fantasy bra from Victoria’s Secret, and the publicity stunt of The Blair Witch Project, which led viewers to believe that the film was based on true events.
4. Enter Marketing Award Competitions
Another way to attract free PR is to enter noteworthy client campaigns into marketing awards. Well-known marketing awards to enter include the Content Marketing Awards, The Shorty Awards, Webby Awards or The Effie Awards. If you happen to win anything, you’re likely going to be included in each of these award-brands’ press releases. Additionally, winning an award of that notoriety is a fantastic opportunity to self-publish a press release highlighting the accolade.
5. Write Opinionated Thought Leadership (or Ghostwrite) from your Founder or Partners
Since content marketing is wildly popular these days and everyone needs fresh content, all of the top tier media sites — Fast Company, Advertising Age, Marketing Profs, Marketing Land and more — accept guest contributor posts. They usually want these under a C-Level author so you can write these yourself if you started the agency (and you can find the time). Alternatively, if you work in marketing or PR for an agency, you can ghostwrite content for your founder(s) or partners. Instead of pitching announcements or press releases to these brands and hoping they’ll cover your news, consider reaching out and providing a uniquely-angled guest post to them instead. Chances are it will get a ton of eyeballs and shares because these sites come with their own massive following and social media community. Guest contributed content can drive a lot of traffic and link equity back to your website.
We hope these five ideas to get press for your marketing agency get your creative juices flowing. If you need additional ideas on media recognition for your agency, check out these seven free and easy PR tactics.