Dreamday has helped some clients triple their press hits and unlock six-figure revenue from affiliate marketing. Lauren says the agency‘s success comes down to combining traditional PR outreach with an affiliate marketing strategy to help publishers size up business opportunities when partnering with a brand. It‘s a win-win: The brand gets customers from the press coverage and the publisher makes a commission on purchases driven by the content.
Ahead, tap into Lauren‘s winning approach for your own brand.
3 ways to win with a PR strategy
Through her years of experience Lauren has developed a strategy that drives results. Here‘s what‘s in Lauren‘s PR playbook for direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies.
1. Get started with affiliate marketing
“Probably 95% of publications that are recommending products are getting a commission on the back end anytime a consumer is purchasing that product,” Lauren says. In other words, the opportunity in affiliate marketing is huge.
As the first step, Lauren recommends businesses join an affiliate network, which will help connect them to publishers. Businesses can usually expect to pay a 10% to 20% commission on purchases that come through a partner‘s affiliate link.
There are many different types of partners in each stage of the marketing funnel, from top-tier publications at the top of the funnel, content creators and bloggers in the mid-funnel, and loyalty and coupon programs at the bottom.
2. Make news with your brand
PR isn‘t necessarily pay-to-play. Lauren says the clients that make press coverage an easy sell already have an interesting founding story or are constantly innovating or participating in a larger cultural conversation.
Press doesn‘t necessarily have to be tied to new products. Lauren explains that being willing to share an insight into why the company made a decision can also be a reason for coverage. Data that conveys the success of a product can also be enough to drive interest from the media.
3. Don‘t sacrifice brand equity for performance
Lauren noticed that some performance marketing agencies focus so much on results that they water down the brand. To address that need, Lauren created a second agency called The Quality Edit, a publisher that helps businesses with editorial, paid social media strategy, ad creative, influencer casting, and more. “There‘s always going to be that fine balance of creative versus performance, but I think what we‘ve cracked at The Quality Edit is kind of the sweet spot of both,” she says.
To learn more about Lauren Kleinman and how she runs both Dreamday and The Quality Edit (while creating an award-winning, supportive company culture), listen to her full interview on Shopify Masters.
