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Analyst Speak- Using search marketing to counter negative PR

Platform: Internet | Author: Heather Hopkins Hitwise | Source: NMA magazine | Published: 30.11.06

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Back in the summer Cadbury's chocolate became embroiled in a scandal over salmonella. More recently, Dell and Sony suffered after bloggers posted images of 'exploding' laptops. When negative news about a brand hits, consumers are increasingly turning to the internet for information.

How can a brand get its message across when bloggers and news agencies dominate search results? The answer is to use paid search marketing defensively.

In instances of high-profile negative PR, search...

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... results are headed by news aggregators, such as Google News or Yahoo! News, followed by organic listings. Bloggers and news agencies that are first to the story are often better optimised to receive visits from searches related to the negative news story, so they appear ahead of the brand's own website.

According to Hitwise, searches for 'dell battery recall' peaked in the four weeks to 19 August 2006. Just over half (55%) of UK internet searches for that term sent visits to a Dell website; the rest went to other sites, in particular news and media sites like The Register, The Telegraph and Google News.

Even if your site is at the top of the organic search listings, it may still fall below the news results shortcut or any sponsored listings. This means that consumers searching for information on a negative PR story potentially see your listing after that of news sites and blogs. Add to this the inability to control the copy that shows in the organic results or the subsequent landing pages and there's a strong case to engage in paid search marketing.

Paid search marketing presents a terrific opportunity to get your brand's message across. But this isn't just about getting people to visit your site; it's about getting your message out to the public.

Take the example of the Dell battery recall. As soon as the photos of 'exploding' laptops appeared online, Dell could have used search marketing to appear at the top of results pages with a message like 'Battery recall official list: find out if you're affected' or 'Free battery replacement: find out if you qualify'.

In addition to trying to draw people to your website, paid listings can be used to get your side of the story out to the market. You can provide full details on the landing page, and the text in the sponsored listing can be used to get your message to a broad audience.

Even if the consumer clicks on the news result, at least they've seen your response to the story, in two lines or less.

Heather Hopkins is VP of research for Hitwise UK. For additional Hitwise insights on creative uses of search marketing, email heather.hopkins@ hitwise.com or visit the Hitwise Intelligence blog at weblogs.hitwise.com