Read All About It! Earned Media Could Be Your Next Best Marketing Move
Why you need to incorporate earned media into your business-to-business (B2B) marketing mix. [Any sized business can do this]
Fact. 70% of consumers trust earned media (news articles) over paid media (advertising). In a world overflowing with short form videos and the never-ending barrage of email newsletters, ‘earned-media’ is often overlooked as an effective B2B marketing tool.
Feature articles and news releases published in the right news outlets have the potential to earn your company significant publicity among relevant and senior professional audiences, and with minimal cost. Here’s how it works and how to do it.
What Is ‘Earned Media’?
Earned media is content which a news outlet chooses to publish to its readers at no cost to the organisation which provided it. The value of a good story to a journalist is its relevance to their readership. The only ‘cost’ to a company producing a piece of earned media is the time taken to research, write and issue the news content to journalists. Advertising, on the other hand, runs on a ‘pay and display’ system, with the news outlet showing little or no regard for its content.
Advertising vs Earned Media
“73% of decision makers say that an organization’s thought-leadership content is more trustworthy than its marketing materials.”
People perceive earned media in a much more positive light compared to advertising. Here are some key stats:
70% of consumers trust earned media (news articles) over paid media (advertising).
73% of decision makers say that an organization’s thought-leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities and competencies than its marketing materials.
80% of business decision-makers prefer to get information from articles rather than ads, showing a preference for informative content over traditional ads.
96% of B2B buyers want content with more input from industry thought leaders & 75 percent of decision-makers and C-suite executives say a piece of thought leadership has led them to research a product or service they were not previously considering.
The Two Types of Earned Media
There are two key forms of earned media. A news release is a short, concise press release that covers current news, and is intended for immediate publication. A feature piece or thought leadership article is a longer piece of content which informs and educates readers on a current topic. While these articles can reference current news, the content won’t be outdated as quickly as a news story.
Unlike paid advertising, producing a news release or a feature will not guarantee publication.
How to Create A Good News Release
Depending on the publication, journalists can receive hundreds of news stories a day, and only a handful of these will actually be chosen for publication. To give your news the best chance of catching a journo’s eye, it’s key to understand what good, newsworthy content looks like.
If you think you have a news story worth shouting about, consider the below before you put pen/finger to pencil/keyboard:
Is the news story overtly promotional? If so, it’s unlikely to be of interest to a journalist or reader!
Will someone who has never heard of your brand still be interested by your news? This can help determine if the news hook is strong enough.
Can you summarise the news in one sentence. If not, you may not have a strong enough news hook.
If your news article fits the criteria above, you may have something that will be of interest to journalists. Now you need to write the piece.
Writing A News Release
When creating your news release, consider the below points:
Keep the headline snappy, and include 3-4 sub-bullet points which outline the key points of your story. Puns can be used if appropriate.
Summarise the news in the first sentence of the body of the news release.
Have a hierarchy to your information, starting with the most important at the top, then building on this with supplementary (but important) information below.
Keep the news release to 300-400 words in length.
Add any relevant stats to give your piece authority. Journalists love their stats; if you have your own unique stat, consider including it within your headline.
More often than not, you’ll want to include a quote from someone in your company or related to the news piece.
Source at least one image which can be accompanied with the news release.
Include a short company bio at the end, including a contact for the journalist.
Pitching Your News Story to the Press
The first thing you should do is draw up a ‘media list’ which shows the media titles you want to target. News outlets can be anything from the local paper covering small business success stories, to national industry magazines right up to the daily broadsheets reaching millions of eyes each day. Take a look at readership figures (these aren’t often the most accurate), web visitors and pick out the most ‘valuable’ outlets. If you read industry magazines yourself, would these not be relevant for your own business?
You have a news story which you think will be of interest to a particular set of readers. You’ve done your homework on your publications and picked out several titles whose readers are likely to be potential customers. (Don’t discount B2B print titles here – print is still a valuable medium for many publications, which still enjoys strong readership.) Now you need to pitch your story to journalists.
“Don’t discount B2B print titles – print is still a valuable medium for many trade publications, which still enjoys strong readership.”
Journos are notoriously short on time and (as a result) patience. Ideally, you want some help from someone with press relations experience who may already have links with journalists.
But if you are planning to go it alone, here are some top tips for getting your news over to journalists in the right way:
Your pitch needs to be short, snappy and to the point. A phone pitch is the ideal, but if this isn’t possible, a pitch email should be sent which goes straight into explaining the news story.
Include the whole news story in the email and a link to any images. This way the journalist won’t need to go anywhere else for further information.
Double check the story for a good flow and possible errors. Journalists are looking for news they can rapidly repurpose for their paper. Any typos will put them off.
How to Create Strong Thought-Leadership Content
If you want to contribute an expanded piece on a particular topic in the form of an article, report, interview or case study, you may be better off contributing to a publication’s feature section. 54% of Australian B2B buyers say thought leadership content influences their purchasing decisions, and 75 percent of decision-makers and C-suite executives say a piece of thought leadership has led them to research a product or service they were not previously considering.
If you have the resources to put a feature together, they could work wonders for your brand. If your feature is published, you have the added benefit of knowing most people reading it will have a specific interest in the topic area.
“54% of Australian B2B buyers say thought leadership content influences their purchasing decisions.”
Picking Your Feature
Many B2B publications run features in issues throughout the year, and often publish their feature calendar well in advance of a new calendar year. This means you can plan out which features in which publications you want to provide content for.
Features lists are usually publicly available as PDFs online and are often included within the printed versions of any trade magazines.
If you can’t find the features list, reach out to the publication via email to request this.
Pitching Your Feature to A Magazine
Once you have noted down the feature topics which are relevant to your business, you need to pitch your feature before you have written it. Unlike a news release, magazines will only have a set amount of space for possible contributors, so they need to plan out their content in advance.
Contact the feature editor at the magazine and send over your topic idea along with three or four bullet points summarising the content. Clarify the format of your feature; is it a straightforward article, an interview or a writeup of a survey you issued with customers. The feature editor may adapt your suggestion or be happy with it as it is. If it’s not already clear, get the wordcount and deadline confirmed in writing before you start writing the piece.
Writing A Feature
Features are longer pieces of content which usually offer more coverage space, but they also take more time to produce.
Here as some key points to bear in mind when writing your article:
Aim to offer a fresh perspective on a topic. A feature is your chance to share your views in more detail.
Add any relevant stats to give your piece authority.
Ensure your feature isn’t overly promotional. The mention of your company name (and in some cases, product or service) is usually acceptable to journalists towards the end of the piece.
Include a quote from someone in your company or related to the piece.
Source at least two images which can be accompanied with the feature.
Include a short company bio at the end.
And finally… meet the journalist’s deadline!
After you’ve submitted your feature, make a note of when the piece is likely to be published. If you haven’t seen it, follow up with the journalist. If you have seen it, that’s a good opportunity to send a thank you note to the journalist and solidify your relationship.
You may be able to repurpose your article for similar features. Avoid sending the same feature, unedited, to another magazine; journalists often want your content to be exclusive to their title.
Building Media Relationships
Business relies on relationships, and the same principle applies to working with journalists. If you can supply a journalist with what they need often enough, they will look favourably on the news you send them in the future. This makes it more likely that your future stories will be picked up. Building rapport will further strengthen these links, and can be fostered with local journalists right up to those producing news for daily nationals.
Spread the Word
Being regularly featured in certain publications will also get you on the radar of other journalists. If other reporters take an interest in your story, they may reach out for further comment, or ask you to comment on a similar news story they are creating. One call can lead to another; I’ve had multiple requests from national journalists seeking comment on specific news after a client made a name for themselves commenting on an issue.
SEO & Shareability
There are several SEO benefits of having your news featured online. News articles stay up indefinitely, helping with your Google search rankings, while ads disappear when budget runs out. Backlinks from news sites improve your website’s authority, also leading to better Google search rankings. On top of this, news articles are more shareable than ads. This is because people are more likely to share a credible third-party endorsement than a self-promotional ad. Your news can also populate your website, giving visitors more of a reason to stick around.
Final Thoughts
In today’s world of aggressive marketing, ad fatigue among consumers is on the rise. But while adverts are often ignored or skipped, stats show that readers remain engaged by editorial content.
Smaller businesses are likely to be unable to compete with larger competitors when it comes to ad spend. This is where earned media can be an excellent strategy for targeting potential customers at a lower cost.
Earned media is more of a level playing field; smaller businesses still stand a good chance of being covered by the press if they can offer good quality news to the right titles.
If you don’t have the budget for ads, but do have some genuine news that you feel will be of interest to enough people, consider going down the earned media route. Its returns may surprise you.
