70% of investors make investment decisions on the basis of something they learned from digital research.

Is that surprising to you? To me, it's not.

What's most unique about the PR industry unlike any other discipline is that it deals with a multitude of stakeholders - buyers, media people, employees, investors. 

At the heart of Inbound PR is exactly that stakeholder persona that you need to get to know in and out around their challenges, consumption methods, research preferences, communication and information channels and most importantly decision-making process. 

Traditionally, you would think that investors wouldn't be spending their time on digital or trusting those sources, but that's how we thought about buyers and media people too. 

New research proves that you'd be better off with a similar inbound approach for your investors just as for your other stakeholders. 

Clap if you agree: PR's biggest challenge throughout its entire existence has been measurement. 

I wish I could hear you. 

But I'm sure that pretty much everyone who works in the PR industry would agree. 

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of participating in Paul Sutton's podcast where we spoke about Inbound PR and how it presents "a methodology for public relations that moves the conversation firmly away from being one about reputation management to being one about the bottom line."

What prompted this post was Paul's latest episode with Kate Hartley where they summarised the entire season of the podcast show. A lovely conversation about humanity and vulnerability, about our core as people and what drives us that you should listen to as well. 

Inbound PR popped up as part of the discussion too around minute 17:30

"At the crux of the case for Inbound PR is the notion that in combining public relations with inbound methodology, public relations becomes highly relevant in the current and likely future states of the market. An Inbound PR shop will be able to measure the value of its services; it will be able to easily leverage all things digital; it will have the tools to establish itself as an authority in its field and to counsel clients in becoming the leading thinkers in their own respective industries."

The above is a quote taken from the most comprehensive Amazon review I've seen. I feel grateful that this review was left for my Inbound PR book that dropped in April. 

In addition to the tons of quotes from the Amazon reviews, I've also collated 10 quotes from the book itself. 

You'll find them in this Slidedeck as well as in writing below. 

10 Quotes About Inbound PR

We live in an inbound world where outbound no longer works. The traditional methods we’ve been so used to when doing PR are outdated simply because they are outbound.

There are two ingredients that you need if you want to make Inbound PR work: a different mindset (a methodology) and a tool stack (technology).

Let’s start with methodology.

When I began working on the Inbound PR concept, I felt that it would be helpful to have a visual that could easily explain some of the thought processes underlying the entire notion and the tactics that would make it work.

So I took the inbound marketing methodology and flipped it into its PR version, focusing on the media as the key persona. Let me throw a quick disclaimer here: Inbound PR can work for any stakeholder group: customers, media, employees, etc.

The Inbound PR Methodology

Disclaimer: This blog post is not legal advice to use to comply with the EU's GDPR. It just provides some useful information but you should seek legal counsel to ensure you comply with the GDPR.

The GDPR or EU's new general data protection regulation is coming into effect on 25 May.  

Lots of companies and individuals have been scared of it over the last year since it was announced. 

Instead, people should be excited because the GDPR is fair towards how people really want to be communicated with, by whom, about what and how often. 

GDPR is full on inbound. 

It states that companies must be transparent and fair with how they collect, process and use personal data. Though it’s a European law, it affects any marketer that gathers data on a global basis.

This basically means that people need to first give you consent that you can collect and use their data to communicate with them and only for specific reasons. 

And that's exactly inbound because inbound pulls people into your business where they willingly share their information with you in exchange for content value vs. outbound where you get lists of contacts who've never heard of you before or have never been attracted to your content (nor agreed to receive it) and blast them emails out. That's now illegal!