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9 call analytics platforms for marketing teams to consider

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9 call analytics platforms for marketing teams to consider

The global pandemic has confirmed what many marketers already knew: the telephone is an integral part of the consumer purchase journey. Consumers crisscross multiple online and offline channels, often from the comfort of their own homes, to research products and services and make informed purchase decisions. The high-tech/high-touch telephone provides them with convenience, speed and personal contact that inspires brand trust.

More and more enterprise marketers are using call analytics platforms to collect, analyze and act upon the growing volume of caller data now being captured from the billions of inbound calls to businesses.

Below you will find a list of 19 call analytics vendors that we profiled in the latest MarTech Intelligence Report on enterprise call analytics platforms.

These platforms provide a core set of competencies that automate and scale call tracking, recording, scoring, routing and fraud prevention.

Every enterprise is unique and at a different level of maturity in its web, social, mobile and multichannel marketing efforts. Marketers must carefully weigh current analytics needs against future goals when evaluating the return on call analytics investments. The market is continually developing, and many vendors are investing heavily in AI and machine learning to expand the range of marketing and sales use cases for their solutions. A careful and comprehensive internal evaluation of business goals and resources is the first step in the decision-making process. The result can be a long-term, productive call analytics partnership that boosts both revenue and profit for your marketing organization.

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Here is our list, which is organized alphabetically and not in any order of importance. For information on pricing and a deeper feature breakdown, download the MarTech Intelligence Report.

CallRail

CallRail’s platform (via Callrail)

Atlanta-based CallRail was founded in 2011. It has 300 employees and has raised more than $132 million in venture funding.

Target customers

CallRail serves SMBs or marketing agencies with clients that rely on communications with customers — phone calls, texts, form submissions, and/or chats — to generate leads, close deals, and grow their businesses in the home services, real estate, legal services, financial services, healthcare and automotive industries. Key customers include Cardinal Web Solutions, Einstein Industries, Molina Healthcare, Slamdot, West Dermatology and Workshop Digital.

Product overview

CallRail offers four solutions: Call Tracking, Form Tracking, Conversation Intelligence, and Lead Center.

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  • Call Tracking is a real-time solution that lets users track and analyze inbound calls to optimize marketing campaigns and maximize lead generation, conversion rates, and each campaign’s ROI.
  • Form Tracking captures and tracks form submissions, connecting online and offline marketing efforts to provide a more complete view of the customer’s
    journey.
  • Conversation Intelligence automatically records and transcribes inbound phone calls in real time and pairs with Call Tracking to classify, qualify, and quantify conversations using keywords that the user defines.
  • Lead Center, an intuitive business communications solution, lets users take, make, and manage calls, texts, and chats from one unified inbox, within the CallRail platform. Provides a real-time view of the customer journey to have smarter customer conversations.

CallRail says its platform provides seamless, real-time, native integration to 45 different marketing solutions and platforms, including CRMs, social media and search engine ad platforms, marketing management solutions and more.

It also supports custom integration via Zapier, webhooks, custom cookie capture, and API and its Lead Center mobile app lets users run a business efficiently from anywhere.

CallSource

EveryLead: Online & Offline Digitial Attribution in One Dashboard
A CallSource dashboard (via CallSource)

Westlake Village, California-based CallSource was founded in 1991. It has more than 100 employees.

Target customers

CallSource serves SMBs, enterprise brands, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and multilocation marketers in the automotive, professional services, home services, healthcare and franchise industries. Key customers include Champion Services, Dealer.com, Sonic Automotive Group and Trane.

Product overview

CallSource offers a call tracking for offline attribution solution that has evolved to include advanced digital marketing, and call coaching and performance.

It also offers a variety of services to maximize advertising ROI and call handler performance. Solutions include call tracking, lead categorization/parsing and alerts for missed opportunites and review responses.

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Its solutions are designed to maximize call-to-appointment rates by helping employees improve phone-handling skills. Key metrics include cost-per-lead by ad source, as well as lead conversion rate by employee.

CallTrack captures and identifies call numbers, locations and sources; records calls for review.

  • Local, toll-free and vanity numbers available.
  • Dynamic number insertion (DNI) available and can track up to 5 dynamic phone numbers on a single webpage.

Its Deal Saver feature delivers alerts to owners if an appointment opportunity was missed. It provides the caller’s essential contact data, call handler information, an audio file of the call and notes what department the alert came from.

Telephone Performance Analysis (TPA) is an employee evaluation tool that analyzes agent sales/customer service skills by reviewing and grading sales calls based on specific criteria.

Call Coaching uses recorded calls scored against CallSource’s proprietary principles to build call handlers’ skills and increase call-to-appointment rates.

EveryLead combines offline and online attribution in a real-time dashboard.

CS Reviews & RespondNow uses real people to aggregate and respond to online reviews for business owners to protect brand reputation using customized criteria.

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CallShield is a cloud-based fraud detection and prevention service that blocks telephone hacking and computer-generated robocalls.


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CallTrackingMetrics

Reporting | CallTrackingMetrics
A screenshot showing several CallTrackingMetrics dashboards (via CallTrackingMetrics)

Severna Park, Maryland-based CallTrackingMetrics was founded in 2008. It has 65 employees and is privately funded.

Target customers

CallTrackingMetrics serves bid-market B2B and B2C brands, plus agencies, consultancies and performance marketers (lead resellers) serving industries relying on critical communication channels such as addiction treatment, law, healthcare, home services, multi-location franchises and enterprise-level call centers. Key customers include Crystal Cruises, Pulte Homes, SearchKings, ServiceMaster and The Goddard School.

Product overview

The CallTrackingMetrics call tracking platform combines conversation intelligence with contact center functionality to drive more informed marketing decisions and facilitate smarter customer acquisition and communication across sales, marketing and customer service teams.

The platform conditionally directs calls, texts, chats and online forms based on actions visitors have taken on a brand website, conversation history, location, custom criteria and more.

The platform defines rules and milestones with an autodialer to strategically manage calls in line with team availability and caller behavior.

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Call tracking features include:

  • Reliable dynamic number insertion (DNI) for session-level attribution.
  • Local, toll-free and vanity tracking numbers for online and offline tracking.
  • Omni-channel attribution across calls, texts, form fills and chats.
  • Conversation intelligence tools like live listen, transcriptions, call recording and keyword spotting.
  • Real-time activity stream to view all conversations as they happen.
  • Standard and custom reporting dashboards to track activity volume.

Contact center features include:

  • Browser-based softphone to facilitate the communication of in-office or remote workforces.
  • Bulk SMS messaging and auto dialer features.
  • Advanced call routing options and smart routing from customizable IVRs to georouting.
  • Intuitive team and role structures to power agent queues, schedules and real-time agent reporting.
  • Customer service tools to meet users where they are, while remaining in one platform to answer calls, texts and chats.
  • Whisper messages, automated tagging, wrap-up panels and call scoring for efficient communication and follow-up.

Infinity

Travel solutions | Infinity
A screenshot of Infinity’s platform (via Infinity)

London-based Infinity was founded in 2010 and has 135 employees. Its global services available in 85-plus countries worldwide. In September 2021, Infinity acquired call tracking and analytics provider ResponseTap. It has additional U.S. offices in San Francisco; international offices in Madrid and Reigate, and Surrey and Manchester offices in the U.K.

Target customers

Infinity serves brands in the automotive, financial services, leisure, healthcare, education, professional services, technology, communications, utilities and real estate markets, as well as agencies that serve them. Key customers include Allianz, Laureate, Mazda, Meliá Hotels International, Samsung and TruGreen.

Product overview

Infinity offers full visitor journey attribution, call recording and visitor-level call tracking for granular visibility on channel performance when a phone call is a touchpoint.

It provides call handlers with real-time caller insights, including digital journey tracking and PPC keywords and pinpoints which marketing campaigns lead to highest value calls to inform future activity.

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Infinity uses the online journey and customer conversations to tailor the customer experience, including routing with no need for an interactive voice response (IVR), call prioritization, and agent pairing.

Other features include:

  • Call transcription for data analysis for better customer interaction and benefits around call handler development, marketing insight and revenue tracking.
  • Fully encrypted session initiation protocol (SIP) calls for inbound and outbound calls across multiple major markets.

What is call analytics and what does it do for

Explore platform capabilities from vendors like CallRail, Invoca, CallSource, DialogueTech and more in the full MarTech Intelligence Report on enterprise call analytics platforms.

Click here to download!


Invoca

Invoca | Award Winning Active Conversation Intelligence Software
Example of call transcript analysis by Invoca (via Invoca)

Santa Barbara, California-based Invoca was founded in 2008. It has more than 320 employees and more than 2,300 customers. Invoca acquired call tracking and analytics provider DialogTech in May 2021. It has raised $116 million in six rounds of venture funding.

Target customers

Invoca serves marketing, e-commerce, sales, and customer experience teams at enterprise and mid-market B2C brands, as well as agencies and pay-per-call marketers serving high-value purchase industries, including automotive, healthcare, financial services, insurance, telecommunications, home services, and travel. Key customers include BBQ Guys, DISH Network, University Hospitals and 1-800-GOT-JUNK?.

Product overview

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Invoca’s Active Conversation Intelligence platform enables marketing, sales, customer experience and e-commerce teams to understand and act on the information consumers share via conversations to accelerate revenue by improving marketing and sales results.

The platform integrates with leading marketing technology, adtech, CRM, and call center platforms to turn conversation data into automated action to create better experiences, more conversions and higher revenue.

Platform features include:

  • Inbound call tracking on a 1:1 consumer and session-level basis with dynamic number insertion (DNI) for toll-free and local numbers.
  • Call recording and conversation transcriptions that automatically redact sensitive information like credit card and social security numbers.
  • Granular customer journey data capture (e.g. campaign, search keyword, product viewed, data entered into online shopping carts, etc.) with Invoca’s first-party JavaScript website tag.
  • Real-time call classification, conversion topic and outcome detection, and call segmentation with artificial intelligence-based conversational analytics, spoken keyword detection, and pre-call marketing data (IVR keypress, caller attributes, referring marketing source, activity on websites, etc.).
  • Automated quality assurance (QA) and call scoring to quantify agent performance and track script compliance.
  • Automatically identify coaching moments and improve agent performance through data-driven coaching.
  • Lost Sales Recovery automatically detects missed sales opportunities when callers either fail to reach a live agent (because they hung up or reached voicemail) or high-intent callers that did not convert.
  • Offline conversion and revenue data import via file upload or CRM to measure the intent, outcome and exact revenue generated from each call.
  • Bi-directional integrations with an array of adtech, marketing technology, analytics, CRM, CDP, DX, and CCaaS platforms, including Google Ads, Facebook, Salesforce, Five9, Tealium, and Medallia.
  • In-platform reporting suite with customizable dashboards and reports to visualize high-level trends, access detailed marketing and sales insights and drill down into each call to review all data, signals, recordings and transcriptions.
  • Cloud IVR (interactive voice response) and dynamic call routing using data captured before the call (e.g. campaign, calling page, e-commerce data, caller location, language, day/time, sales vs. support call, etc.) to prioritize routing of high-value calls and connect callers to the right agents or locations right away.

Iovox

Communication, Analytics, Call Tracking - iovox
Iovox platform on different devices (via iovox)

London-based Iovox was founded in 2007. It has 50 employees. The company is privately held and Octopus Ventures and Columbia Lake Partners are the primary institutional investors. Iovox also acquired French-based WannaSpeak in 2019. It has offices in London, Paris, San Francisco and Sydney.

Target customers

Iovox serves enterprise and mid-size businesses looking to incorporate call tracking or speech analytics into an automated marketing process to drive or enhance lead flow. Typical industries served include marketplaces, classifieds, directory services, hospitality and digital agencies. The iovox mobile and web apps are aimed at small businesses and individuals that rely heavily on the phone. Key customers include AutoTrader U.K., British Telecom, Immobiliare.it, LaCentrale Group, REA Group and Zoopla.

Product overview

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Iovox offers a combination of inbound call tracking and value-added services to SMB and enterprise accounts. It is available on a standalone basis via mobile or web app or integrated with a REST API.

API modules include: Voice, Email, Live Chat, Call Data and SMS.

Other features include:

  • Mobile and web-based dialer software, enabling outbound calls and customizable Caller ID when used in conjunction with iovox numbers.
  • Iovox WebConnect, which adds a call button to any website enabling site visitors to place a call directly from a mobile device, tablet or PC, and includes site attribution features in its analytics. The solution allows for full call tracking functionality without requiring the use of unique telephone numbers.
  • Iovox WebCallBack enables web visitors to request a call back at a time convenient for them.
  • Inbound options include both dedicated and dynamic call tracking (source and session based) for conventional marketing automation and conversion tracking.
  • Two-way mobile call tracking solution allows individuals and SMBs to track and organize calls made from mobile phones. Companion web app enables additional number purchasing with enhanced features such as transcriptions, call whispers and keyword spotting.
  • Mobile call center functionality to allow small teams to form virtual call centers to handle calls when working from home or remotely.
  • Iovox Insights uses natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI) to help marketers, sales teams or call centers to identify the reasons for a call and evaluate outcomes and sentiments of every conversation.
  • Supplies unique local numbers in hundreds of countries and offers enhanced features such as call whispers, customizable interactive voice response (IVR), call recording and transcription, keyword spotting, web call back, spam filters and blocking, SMS tracking and CRM integration.

Marchex

Conversation Edition - Marchex
Screenshots of Marchex scorecards (via Marchex)

Seattle-based Marchex was founded in 2003. It is publicly held and trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol “MCHX.” Marchex has more than 250 employees and has more than 30 technology patents.

Target customers

Marchex serves enterprise and mid-market brands, multi-location businesses and agencies with clients in a range of verticals, including automotive manufacturing and services, real estate/senior living, home services, healthcare/dental, e-learning/education, insurance, lending and mortgage, and travel. Key customers include General Motors, Meineke Car Care Centers, Thryv, Wyndham Hotels Group and Zillow.

Product overview

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Marchex offers a suite of conversation intelligence products for marketing and sales teams: Marchex Marketing Edge, Marchex Engage, Marchex Sonar and Marchex Spotlight.

Marchex Marketing Edge uses actionable Al to create more high-intent, revenue-generating conversations. The solution enables brand marketers, agencies and marketing services providers to connect online marketing campaigns to the revenue-generating offline conversations they drive, and reveal which campaigns and marketing channels have the highest ROI and lowest cost per lead.

Key capabilities include:

  • Multichannel attribution dynamic number insertion (DNI) that connects consumer calls, texts, chats and web form completions to marketing campaigns.
  • Integrations with a range of third-party martech, adtech, CRM and chat systems including Salesforce CRM, Adobe Analytics, Google Ads and HubSpot.
  • An intuitive user interface to enable easier campaign management and provide customizable, real-time analytic views that highlight campaign performance.

Marchex Engage uses conversation intelligence to empower sales teams to improve sales outcomes while delivering a better buying experience. It unlocks the content of conversations and enables sellers to increase sales efficiency, take the right action to make the most of every opportunity, and sell more.

Key capabilities include:

  • Action Lists that identify a specific list of conversations that require priority attention based on their outcome to help focus a sales team’s follow-up conversations on the best leads
  • Deal-saving Action Alerts sent to a team specialist so they can take quick action to save a lead, make sure a follow up occurs, and coach their teams after a conversation ends unsuccessfully.
  • Workflow management to track and change the status of conversations that sellers have acted on and identify who is responsible for the next action.
  • Visual conversation playback to listen and move quickly through the most interesting parts of a recorded conversation and follow along via a synchronized transcript.

Marchex Sonar uses intelligent mobile messaging to empower sales and marketing teams to communicate with prospects and customers personally at scale using two-way text messaging and dramatically increase critical actions, customer engagement and conversions.

Key capabilities include:

  • Send and receive SMS and MMS messages over local or toll-free numbers.
  • Send campaign-specific messages to any segment of a target audience based on properties and include data for A/B testing and response rates.
  • Route customers or prospects through an automated conversation flow for lead qualification, saving sales team time and effort.
  • Schedule drip campaigns or automated text messages based on customized times or specific user actions.
  • Add more contextual information to conversations either automatically by a bot or manually by a seller.
  • Stay compliant with the evolving messaging policies and standards by tracking customer opt-out, obtaining double opt-in consent to send messages, and protecting against sending text messages to customers outside of acceptable hours.

Marchex Spotlight measures the performance of a company’s locations in how they are handling inbound conversation opportunities against company benchmark targets, quickly zeroing in on areas of the business where opportunities exist to improve conversation handling performance and results.

Key capabilities include:

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Benchmarking at the highest level of an organization all the way down to an individual location, helping to pinpoint performance results where action can be taken to improve performance.

Proactive, guided insights that surface performance issues a company can immediately be informed of, and directed to, that require corrective conversation handling action while shortening the amount of time it takes to identify the source of the issues.

Ringba

New Dashboard UI, Tweaks and Updates - Ringba updates
A screenshot of Ringba’s platform (via Ringba)

Dover, Delaware-based Ringba was founded in 2015 and has 33 employees.

Target customers

Ringba serves performance marketers, media buyers, digital agencies, enterprise brands and call centers in verticals such as insurance, financial services, healthcare, legal and home services. Key customers include 1-800-DENTIST, Progressive Insurance, eHealth, National General Insurance Corp., Health Network and Allstate.

Product overview

Ringba provides enterprise-grade call tracking to businesses, pay-per-call networks, agencies and performance marketers of all sizes. The company’s real-time tracking and analytics are designed for media buying, click arbitrage and substantial scale.

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Use cases include:

  • Campaign tracking. Allows users to track and monitor call campaigns with real-time analytics.
  • Call attribution. Lets marketers attribute specific traffic sources, keywords, and other data to calls.
  • Automated routing. Enables the creation of dynamic routing plans to automatically manage call flow.
  • Real-time bidding. Allows programmatic buyers to bid on calls in real-time.

Smith.ai

Introducing the Smith.ai Partner Portal: One Account to Manage Your Clients  | Smith.ai
Smith.ai’s partner portal (via Smith.ai)

Los Altos, California-based Smith.ai was founded in 2015 and has 25 employees.

Target customers

Smith.ai serves marketing agencies, franchise-based large organizations, and SMBs in service-driven industries, including automotive, IT, legal, marketing, personal, pet, and homeowner (contracting, lawn/garden, plumbing, HVAC, etc.). Key customers include Colorado Lawyer Team, Convert IT Marketing, Edwards Family Law, Indie Law, Mockingbird Marketing and the Youngblood Group.

Product overview

Smith.ai leverages human and machine intelligence to provide 24/7 answering, intake, scheduling for businesses, plus controls for call routing and spam blocking, as well as insights through call analytics and call metadata.

The service’s work-from-home receptionists answer and return calls, respond to live website chats and SMS text messages, qualify leads, intake new clients, book appointments, and accept payments. Website chat can prompt an outbound call to Smith.ai receptionists or the business owner, and is available as a live-staffed or AI-only solution.

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Transfer notifications can be sent via SMS or chat app (such as Slack) instead of a call, for silent prompts.

The Client Dashboard provides tools for adjusting call-handling settings, so insights from metadata can be used by clients to adjust the course of action on the next call. This is often a collaborative endeavor between a business owner and their staff, the business and Smith.ai support staff, or the business and its marketing agency.

Smith.ai integrates with Slack, MS Teams, SMS, email, and software like business management tools HubSpot or Salesforce to ensure workflows and collaboration are promptly initiated in the right system and assigned to the right person. For example, a New Lead call goes to the sales team, whereas an Existing Client call may go to their account manager. Infrastructure is deployed on Amazon Web Services (AWS) which complies with GDPR. Data is encrypted with Secure Socket Layer technology (SSL).


About The Author

Does your marketing team need a digital experience platform DXP

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Pamela Parker is Research Director at Third Door Media’s Content Studio, where she produces MarTech Intelligence Reports and other in-depth content for digital marketers in conjunction with Search Engine Land and MarTech. Prior to taking on this role at TDM, she served as Content Manager, Senior Editor and Executive Features Editor. Parker is a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since its beginning. She’s a former managing editor of ClickZ and has also worked on the business side helping independent publishers monetize their sites at Federated Media Publishing. Parker earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.


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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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