Earned Media: The Other White Meat

When it comes to owned, paid, and earned media, the latter tends to get neglected, especially in B2B. There are two primary reasons for this. First, as illustrated in this nice little Forbes article, earned media channels cannot be controlled in the same ways that owned and paid can, making it hard to improve and predict with the level of rigor that is demanded today. And second, the Marketing and Media Relations teams in many organizations tend to be siloed from each other, even when they report to the same manager.

Even if these two disciplines work very differently from each other, a lot of low-hanging inbound fruit doesn’t get picked when they don’t work together. Earned media is more credible than other forms, making it a highly-effective sales lubricant, with 93% of sales reps saying that they leverage media coverage when communicating with prospects, and it’s absolutely essential when you’re going after prospects who’ve never heard of you, or who’ve had no previous awareness that you sell something relevant to them. A respected trade publication can perform the same job as that all important first friend who vouches for you as you try to gain entrance to a new circle of friends.

That first cause of B2B earned media neglect that I mentioned is the nature of the beast, and it cannot be entirely tamed, though that Forbes article does make some helpful suggestions that can have some effect. But that lack of collaboration that I mentioned as the second cause is entirely internal, and therefore very much amenable to improvement. And I see three core reasons why you should.

Media Relations Needs Help

When your Marketing people are not significantly involved in the production of press releases and other assets intended for media consumption, your Media Relations people tend to be at the mercy of product managers, which can lead to media content that reads like a feature list, or at the mercy of PR firms, which can lead to a lot of fruitless attempts at getting “human interest” articles published about your company.

The problem with the latter is that nobody wants this content and nobody reads it. The problem with the former is that even when dealing with trade media in highly technical fields, you don’t want your content weighed down with too many details; what the media cares about is what’s special, what stands out, and what’s unique.

And what’s more, a lack of coordination might actually lead to marketing and media assets that don’t agree with each other, a not unheard of problem at tradeshows and the like when some of your assets are created by Media Relations and some by Marketing, and sourced from different origins.

Marketing Needs More Reach

Earned media is a great way to get more reach (and more high-value reach) and achieve other marketing KPIs. Even if it doesn’t contain a lot of marketing-specific messaging or information, favorable media coverage establishes your legitimacy and authority in your industry, making it important to share on your social media channels alongside your blogs, whitepapers, and other content. It also give your content team a break from having to constantly churn out your own content (while improving your SEO), or it can fill in a gap in the content calendar when a normally-scheduled item is late.

What’s more, trade media need clicks too, and they are often very thirsty for content. You can work with their people to create bylines and other content that interests them and their readers, making for another way to establish legitimacy and authority. Some trade media will even let you publish case studies and other content right on their website, which is a great way to get them in front of decisionmakers who might not otherwise be involved in the buying process early enough to consume this content other ways.

But it takes closer collaboration between Media Relations and Marketing to make these things happen, as Marketing might not even be aware of what Media Relations is doing, or what leverageable media-published content is out there on the web, leaving a lot of money on the table, and media relationships uncultivated.

One Side May Be Neglected

When Marketing and Media Relations are siloed from each other, one side will probably be neglected. Why? Because the boss they both eventually report to (in most instances outside of very large orgs) probably came up from one side or the other, not both. If they came up through Media Relations, an organization’s marketing efforts might lack teeth and be oriented around activity instead of effectiveness. If the boss is a marketer, Media Relations might be dismissed as “PR” and given the short shrift because of its perception as a shallow and cursory activity carried out by affable people who don’t really understand the business.

Either situation is not what you want. Earned media is often a more reliable and more useful B2B force multiplier than other tactics. And keeping your storytellers far away from third-parties who write stories for a living is hardly efficient, especially since your content people might be asked to create media content anyway by your regional marketing and sales leaders (the lines tend to blur the further you are from headquarters).

It is therefore better if Marketing and Media Relations work more hand in hand, at HQ and beyond. Your Media Relations people often have huge and very influential personal networks, making them ideal people to be distributing your key Marketing content. And Media Relations people often need a little help from Marketing translating the technical features that product managers relay into benefits that have more real-world appeal.

You can’t necessarily reorganize your company, but you can assign some KPIs for Marketing and Media Relations to share (bylines published, brand mentions, etc.). You can also make certain that Media Relations assets (and those published by third-parties) are also part of the Marketing content calendar. This will help both sides better aware of what the other is doing, and maximize the effectiveness of both.