Winning the 'earned media' game: Best practices

Brands love ‘earned media’. It’s the ultimate fuel to your brand awareness. The crown of credibility, if you will.

But getting invited to the party is easier said than done.

1.The media landscape today is complex than ever before

2. Companies dress the same drab narrative in a shiny costume and call it ‘thought-leadership’

Your unique POV will get you the coveted real estate in a tier 1 media title. Period. But getting your POV to the journalist needs work.

Here’s what I have learnt from my experience of leading the #PR charter for #B2B #SaaS that will help you un-suck at your PR game:

1. Warm up to the media: Expecting journalists to flock to you just because you have ‘your’ story to narrate is setting yourself up for disappointment. Before you start media pitching, you need to include a ‘relationship-building’ stage. The objective of this is introduce yourself to the media with an outcome of brand association that they can recall when a relevant industry story comes along.
2. Be seen: Your coffee conversation with the media will go colder faster than the coffee itself if you disappear after the media meet up. Ensure you keep feeding your relationship with the journo by sending regular updates along with participating in other avenues that keeps you in the media spotlight. Example: Run ads on adjacent channels, publish value-added content on your blog that you can share with the journalist.
3. Have something unique to offer: Let’s be honest. As much as you think you have the most unique product/ service in the world and your competitor is crap (we all have God complex to some degree), the reality is, from the outside, almost all products in the category look alike. Worse still is when they are singing the same song in a slightly different tune. So take some time to create your unique POV. It could be a thought-leadership angle no one has spoken about in your industry or a brand moat that sets you apart from the rest. In most B2B SaaS setups, the product marketing team carries the charter for thought-leadership given the vantage point they are at. Collaborate with them to identify the narrative. Given their understanding of the competitor landscape, product positioning etc. you will be able to layer on your understanding of the latest trends/ themes in media to find an area of intersection that makes it ‘media-worthy’.
4. Make it relevant: How would you like if your favorite trade portal covered stories that had little or nothing to do your industry or the region you live in or with you - the reader? The missing WIIFM for the readers will eventually cost the media with subscriber dropout. If I were the journalist at this portal this would greatly affect my performance. Now with the stage set, back to you – if you are not grounding your news/ opinion/ thought-leadership POV in the local nuances of the region/ industry/ persona, the media has little to no interest in hearing your story let alone allocating its limited real estate to it. So ensure you are embedding regional and industry/ vertical specific nuances into your narratives.
5. Keep your spokesperson(s) consistent: Identifying the right spokesperson for your brand is table stakes. What is equally essential is to have consistency in their representation so the brand association builds and transfers well over time. Not to mention the added advantage of the relationship and rapport built. Plz note: It is possible to have multiple spokespeople who are Subject Matter Experts (SME) in specific areas that become the face of your brand.
6. Make it a two-way street: Yes, earned media needs to be ‘earned’. But that doesn’t mean it’s only about ‘expecting and receiving’ and not ‘giving’. Remembering your media friends on their special days (work anniversary, birthday etc.), referring them in your network, making the introduction to someone you know that they can benefit from – go a long way in building and sustaining your #PR success.

Success in PR has a lot to do with your consistency as with your POV. It compounds over time as the media organically starts reaching out to you for your quotes, presence at events etc., which directly impacts your brand awareness, consumer trust and loyalty.

Net-net, PR has the potential to reap large dividends for your brand only if you play the game right and long enough to see the results come through.