You’ve just had an article published that features your EdTech product. Congratulations! You chose your preferred outlet wisely. Your crafted a compelling pitch, and the editor said yes. Now that your news story, customer profile, or thought leadership piece has seen the light of day, take a moment to pat yourself on the back—and then get back to work.
From a marketing point of view, your articles are only as good as the follow-up you do to promote them. Here are six steps you can take to maximize the impact of a published article.
- Share it on social media—strategically.
Make sure your marketing or communications team shares every article you publish on your social media channels. Facebook and Twitter are sometimes the obvious choices, but it’s also useful to share on LinkedIn, which is a primary channel for administrators and is focused more on professional connections, professional development, and decision-maker information that can be actionable.
If your company’s social pages don’t have a ton of followers yet, you can also boost the signal via key players on your team who may have a strong following. Does your CEO or founder have a solid social media channel? Then they should also share article links on their personal pages.
Also, don’t be afraid to promote the same article more than once. People might miss it the first time, and with platforms like HubSpot and HootSuite, you can write a couple of different messages, schedule them, and see how they perform. This way, you can not only reach more people, but also A/B test your messaging.
- Post the article in the news section of your website.
The news section of your website is another great resource for sharing any articles your company is featured in. Not only does it include these external news pieces with the rest of your own announcements, it’s a great way to archive all of your coverage in one place and can help increase engagement with your website.
- Take advantage of company newsletters and other news alerts.
If your company sends out newsletters or other email updates, make sure to include links to published articles in there as well. Customers and prospects need to see that educators like themselves are succeeding with your products, and the right success story can turn a prospect into a customer.
- Pass along articles to your sales team.
Speaking of prospects, fresh news articles are an excellent tool for salespeople who want to show their leads tangible examples of how your company’s offerings can make their lives easier. If your sales team has any social following or connects with leads on social media, encourage them to share the article links on their social pages. For leads near the bottom of the funnel, an email with a link to the article and a personalized message might just be the last nudge they need to become a customer.
- Share articles with writers and editors you’re looking to build relationships with.
If there’s a particular publication you have hopes of securing a story in someday—or even a specific journalist you’d love to work with—it can be helpful to share recent articles with them. Now, the key here is not to say, “Why don’t you do something like this?” Rather, the goal is to show them that your product or organization makes a good story. If you can, try to position it in a way that shows how a related story would further their journalistic goals rather than just providing additional coverage for you. You don’t want to bombard them with communication, so keep an eye out for what you consider particularly strong articles and send them along as you continue your conversation with them.
- Adapt articles into blog posts for your company page.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to adapt content from your published articles into blog posts. Copyright law prohibits you from just cutting and pasting an entire article, so a smart approach is to use the key topics or themes from the article as inspiration for a blog post. Including a link to the full article gets your site some of that sweet, sweet SEO juice—and also shows the writer and editor that you’re helping to promote their work, which further strengthens your relationship with them.
As we start 2020, one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions is to work more efficiently. These tips will move you in that direction by helping you get the most out of your hard work!
About the Author
Mandi has experience in various PR and marketing roles, as well as from one of Minnesota’s largest K-12 school/library publishers, where she worked in editorial, product planning, and managing licensing partnerships.
Mandi sees her role at PR with Panache! as a continuation of her combined interests in children’s education and building relationships through impactful communication. She lives with her husband in Minnesota, where she spends her free time binge-watching too many TV shows, baking, reading, and continuing to chip away at that next great American novel.
