We surveyed 259 CMOs, marketing directors, marketing execs and marketing officers about how PR fits into the marketing mix. The good news for us as a B2B PR agency is that 97% of them believe that PR is valuable. Phew.

In terms of where PR adds the most value, 39% said it supports reputation management. One tech-company CMO we spoke to said: “We’re a well-known company that generates a lot of media interest. We’re able to use proactive public relations to harness that media interest to build and protect our reputation as a business.”

For 37% of the marketers in our sample, PR was used for brand building. And we couldn’t agree more. We’ve used integrated PR strategies to help unknown start-ups gain traction in new markets. These companies have gone on to become thought leaders and market leaders.

Twenty six percent of our marketers reported that PR is valuable for lead generation. We’ve seen this happen before (we once secured a single piece of coverage that broke a client’s website because of increased traffic volume), but we tend to advise clients that PR on its own isn’t the best lead generation tactic. It works best as one component of an integrated strategy that might include search, content, social or inbound.

What surprised us most about our research was that only 20% of marketers felt PR is valuable for SEO. This shows that the marketing industry has a long way to go in genuinely understanding the mechanics of the discipline. We’ve been banging on about this for years – see our pieces in PR Week and Figaro Digital from way back in 2016 – without PR there is no SEO!

There’s no doubt about it. PR is a worthwhile investment. Browse some of our case studies to find out how we…

helped one organisation trend on Twitter

built thought leadership and followed links for BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions…

turned Bullhorn into a market leader

…generated over 500 inbound leads for WorldPay