Earned media is the backbone of your communications plan, because when done right, it’s a strategy that will allow your brand to develop the kind of recognition, trustworthiness, and authority that you need to succeed with your target demographic.
It’s also easily one of the more underestimated letters in the PESO model.
Earned media has three foundational pillars:
It is all about building relationships with various media, bloggers, influencers, and, in some cases, investors.
The most painful part about earned media is the time it takes.
You’re building relationships with human beings—and that just doesn’t happen overnight.
Earned media is also known as publicity or media relations.
It’s what the PR industry is traditionally known for.
And it’s tangible, and powerful, because it’s a rubber-stamped seal of approval from journalists, influencers, and media that your target demographic view as an authority on the subject.
Their authority transfers to you, boosting your credibility with your market.
As well, contributed content such as guest posts, podcast appearances, and guest spots on livestreams can be as powerful—and it falls within the earned media scope.
The little known secret about earned media is you don’t have to wait for people to come to you.
(Nor do you have to wait for the relationships to be built.)
Network.
Pitch.
Make requests.
Make offers.
By doing the legwork of figuring out who the most important influencers in your industry are, and starting to make connections, you’re creating not only content that will help you reach your goals, you’re creating a network of people who want to help you.
This helps you get your brand in front of more potential clients, and helps you get the digital content out there in a way that search engines will start to recognize.
One of the simplest and most effective examples of earned media is the guest article or blog post on a website that is well known in your industry with a link leading back to your own website.
For us, that would be something like Inc. or Forbes, but depending on your brand or business, it could be the Llama Farmer’s Daily, or the Train Enthusiast Digest.
(I made up those publication names. Rather, I think I made them up. They may exist. I just don’t know it.)
Authority and relevance to your audience is… relative.
By having a high-authority, relevant website link to your own site, with the right anchor text or targeted keywords, and a compelling call-to-action, you generate leads which you can then optimize, and nurture into qualified buyers.
And, it helps you build brand awareness because you are placing interesting content in publications your prospective buyer is reading.
All that from one piece of contributed content.
I know. It boggles the mind.
But you don’t just wake up and say: I want to write for Forbes, or the Llama Farmer’s Daily.
It takes time, and it takes some credibility to be able to do that kind of thing.
So let’s start a little further back along the chain.
Make sure your content is valuable, interesting, and exclusive and get to work.
I’m not being facetious. That’s really the most important part, and it’s what you SHOULD be doing already.
If you’re not sure how to take your already excellent content and never ending list of ideas and turn it into compelling earned media pitches, here’s a very quick and dirty process to get started:
If you still aren’t sure where to get started, or just need fresh ideas to revamp your earned media program, try these out for size.
Want to learn more about how all of this works together, and hear Spin Sucks community members talk about their best earned media examples?
Subscribe to the Spin Sucks podcast. You know you wanna!
Photo by G. Crescoli on Unsplash
Gini Dietrich is the founder, CEO, and author of Spin Sucks, host of the Spin Sucks podcast, and author of Spin Sucks (the book). She is the creator of the PESO Model and has crafted a certification for it in partnership with Syracuse University. She has run and grown an agency for the past 15 years. She is co-author of Marketing in the Round, co-host of Inside PR, and co-host of The Agency Leadership podcast.