ReportWire

Tag: Earned media

  • 5 Ways to Earn Media Coverage Even If You Don’t Have News | Entrepreneur

    5 Ways to Earn Media Coverage Even If You Don’t Have News | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Whether a startup or a Fortune 500 company, earning positive and continuous media coverage is an important part of building strong relationships with customers, partners, investors, employees, regulators and other key audiences.

    Yet even the largest organizations often do not have a steady stream of news to report, which begs the question — how can you earn positive media coverage when there’s no news? With a little creativity and chutzpah, there are actually quite a few ways to general high-quality, consistent coverage.

    Related: 6 Ways to Wring All the Value from Your Earned Media Coverage

    Why strong media coverage matters

    Strong media coverage supports an organization by maintaining a positive brand and as one component of a comprehensive business development marketing program. There are a million definitions of a brand; put simply, a brand is the image, personality and value proposition of, and trust in a product or service. If you think of a brand as a bank account; strong, positive, accurate and continuous media coverage are “deposits” into that account. When there is a negative event, such as a product recall, an ad campaign that is criticized or an employee commits a crime, these are “withdrawals” from that account. A strong brand enables the management team to take remedial action, apologize for the event and move forward, often without a negative impact on sales.

    Ongoing media coverage also supports business development to varying degrees. If one accepts a sales cycle or funnel as including the traditional five phases — inform, educate, excite, trial and sale — positive media coverage accelerates the sales cycle in the inform, educate and excite phases for all products and services, whether a $20 computer mouse or a $100,000 software subscription. For less expensive products, media coverage alone will accelerate the trial and final sale as well.

    With this in mind, here are five creative strategies to increase the quality and quantity of any organization’s media coverage.

    1. Creative content

    Media aim to cover new content that reports on news or trends. This content can take many forms, here are just three examples:

    • Surveys: Surveys can range from statistically significant polls of several thousand respondents to highly in-depth interviews of as few as 10 subject experts. To generate media coverage that supports the organization, the subject matter should somehow relate to the organization. The key to a successful survey is to identify news or trends that create “aha” moments. Of course, this can be difficult to predict as the marketing team develops the survey instrument, but one helpful approach is to envision the media headlines the marketing team wants and structure the survey questions around those.
    • Aggregated data: Many companies collect data on their customers they can aggregate, sort and analyze, often revealing interesting trends. As long as the company does not reveal any personally identifiable information (PII) and complies with state and industry-specific data privacy regulations, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), this is a perfectly legitimate practice.
    • Infographics: Infographics enable a marketing team to offer their organization’s point of view in a visually-attractive, simple way. Some media will use infographics alone, others will include an infographic along with an article on the subject.

    Related: Why Earned Media Is the Best Way to Earn Your Reputation

    2. Creative outreach

    Media receive literally hundreds of emails a day, each proposing an article or broadcast segment idea. Marketers need to break through that clutter to get their messages across.

    With media returning to their offices, many at least part-time, one approach is a “press kit in a box.” This is a package with inexpensive items related to the article/broadcast segment idea. Human curiosity dictates that the recipient will open the package. For example, a company promoting a new exercise app might send a T-shirt with the company’s logo, an exercise band and a Luna bar, along with a card with a QR code containing a press release and other information to support the story they are pitching.

    3. Creative targeting

    A core strategy for marketing teams trying to earn coverage is to “find a home for the story.” Clearly, marketers need to reach out to banking reporters when pitching a new banking product. But there is often a wide group of reporters that might be interested in the story. Is there a human interest element to the story, i.e. did the bank develop the new product as a result of consumer input? Or does the new product enable people who previously couldn’t afford to buy a home now able to receive a mortgage? Finding microtrends and other stories within the wider story can extend your media outreach and opportunity for coverage.

    4. Creative use of influencers

    Media will often look for outside sources to corroborate a story idea. Providing this support early on when proposing an article/segment idea can both attract additional media interest and accelerate the story development cycle. Any number of sources can act as credible influencers. These include industry analysts, independent research firms, law or accounting firms with recognized expertise on a given topic, investors and even bloggers. For products or services where customers perceive little differentiation, quotes or testimonials by influencers can tip the balance of closing a sale.

    5. Creative packaging

    Sometimes organizations have interesting content that is unorganized or developed for different purposes than for public consumption. By recasting that information to tell a specific story, organizations can “create something out of nothing.” By packaging that information as a quarterly update, for example, the organization can conduct quarter-by-quarter trend analysis, which provides an added layer of insights beyond just the information itself.

    Related: Why Media Coverage Is Your Most Powerful Sales Tool

    It’s time to get creative

    Ten years ago, when media accepted article or segment themes, they would handle all the investigative work to prepare the story. Today, many media must publish more content with fewer resources. As a result, they rely on marketing organizations to provide many of the supporting elements of a story — photos, video, testimonial quotes and more. Adding a new level of creativity to media relations enables marketing teams to take advantage of this trend and earn more and better coverage for their organizations.

    HubSpot notes in a recent report that 61% of marketers consider lead generation their toughest challenge. While generating brand awareness is important, in today’s uncertain economic and hypercompetitive environment, marketers should pull all the levers they can to keep their sales pipeline line full — not just of any leads, but of quality leads. Ongoing, positive media coverage can be a strong contributor to this goal.

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    Tim Johnson

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  • Entrepreneur | How to Make the Most of Your Public Relations

    Entrepreneur | How to Make the Most of Your Public Relations

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Public relations (PR) is essential to any successful strategic marketing plan, but is your business making the most of its PR efforts? An effective PR campaign not only delivers media coverage in your target publications. In addition, optimized PR feeds into all other analog and digital marketing efforts to help your business connect with its audiences, wherever they are.

    Why PR is so powerful

    Even in the age of digital marketing, public relations campaigns are based on pitching to the media. When just a few years ago, PR professionals focused on print and broadcast media only; they are now extending their efforts to include online-only publications and leading bloggers.

    The goal is simple: PR professionals are working with journalists and other content creators to add credibility to the brand they are representing. Media coverage not only creates exposure for the brand. It also adds a layer of credibility and trust that exceeds what other elements of a brand’s marketing strategy can provide.

    According to the Institute for PR, audiences consider so-called earned media to be more credible than other sources of information. This credibility is critical to brand development, whether you want to build brand awareness or establish thought leadership in your field. Earned media is the result of effective PR.

    The importance of PR is reflected in the industry’s continued growth. PR revenue is expected to grow worldwide from $88 billion in 2020 to $129 billion in 2025. PR agencies in the United States generated $14.5 billion in revenue in 2020. PR grew during the pandemic when advertising and the marketing industry as a whole contracted.

    Related: Need PR Wins? Think Into the Future First

    How to optimize the outcome of PR campaigns

    To optimize the results of PR campaigns and maximize the benefits of public relations for a brand, marketing and PR professionals need to recognize the strengths of PR. Although online and offline news coverage can support a brand in the short and the long term, PR thrives over time. In addition, PR campaigns have more impact when connected to other elements of a company’s marketing strategy.

    Focusing on the long term

    Establishing successful media relationships takes time. PR experts understand which publications are interested in covering which brands and consistently pitch relevant stories to their media contacts. They understand that not every journalist will pick up every press release or feature suggestion. Rather than blanket-emailing press releases, PR pros get to know the interests of the most relevant journalist and pitch stories that are likely to make the cut.

    The effort of relationship-building and consistency pays off when a brand receives attention in local and regional media outlets, eventually even getting the attention of national media. Industry-specific publications can also offer a great starting point for PR campaigns.

    PR is best used as a mid to long term component of a brand’s marketing strategy. Allowing time to establish and nurture media relationships plays to the strengths of PR. Of course, there may be situations when immediate crisis communications are critical to protecting a brand’s reputation. But in most cases, PR excels as part of a long-term strategy.

    Combining the strengths of PR with other marketing activities

    Despite its undoubted strengths, PR alone is not enough to achieve all of a company’s business goals. Expecting a single PR campaign to increase credibility, drive web traffic, establish thought leadership within an industry and drive foot traffic to local branches is unrealistic.

    Saying that, once marketing teams combine PR efforts with other strategic marketing activities, they will soon see the desired results. Combined with consistent brand messaging, for example, PR can improve brand perception among audiences.

    While public relations does not necessarily result in immediate sales, stories pitched to the media can effectively educate the public about specific products and services. Many online publications are happy to link to a company’s website, thus helping search engine optimization (SEO) and local search rankings.

    Related: Crafting The Best Public Relations Strategy For Your Business

    How PR, paid advertising and social media work together

    Where PR is ideal for improving a brand’s image in the long term and connecting with audiences through a third party, paid advertising offers short-term, data-driven opportunities.

    A strategically planned program of paid adverts can immediately increase brand or product exposure. Since the advent of digital marketing channels, it has become easier to reach highly targeted audiences, increasing the effectiveness of campaigns. Real-time campaign performance data allows marketers to iterate messaging and campaign design on the spot, further improving the effectiveness of their approach.

    High-quality visual content, including images and videos, can be compelling in local newspapers, broadcast outlets and online channels. By streamlining advertising and PR messages, paid and earned media start working hand in hand to reach users of publications they already enjoy and, more importantly, trust.

    Social media has been another fairly recent addition to a marketing team’s choice of channels where they connect with their audiences. Like traditional media, social media offers a range of opportunities, including paid, earned and owned coverage.

    While earned coverage continues to come with the highest level of credibility even on social media, a company’s owned media channels offer another opportunity to share the results of PR efforts. By sharing stories that have been published about the brand, marketers are allowing the third-party credibility of those stories to reflect on the brand.

    Existing followers will feel reassured in their choice of brand followership, and sharing stories from credible sources may catch the interest of new potential audiences.

    Related: How to Utilize Public Relations Without Sacrificing Your Own Narrative

    Bringing it all together

    Successful marketing relies on a solid strategy that joins the strengths of PR and other marketing activities. Combining PR with the power of branding, content creation, advertising campaigns, and social media outreach allows companies to generate the marketing results and overall business growth they are looking for. On its own, PR is powerful, but in combination with other marketing activities, public relations become unbeatable.

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    Jessica Wong

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