Many marketing and communications directors and managers struggle with their PR and earned media results, and understandably so. Gaining visibility in traditional media is becoming increasingly difficult, which means you need to spend more and more time finding better news angles to make your brand and story stand out.
That’s why we created a straightforward but also effective guide to support everyone with PR tasks and boost your brand’s media visibility.
Let’s start by asking: why do brands invest in earned media? Here’s why:
Client’s trust in advertising channels
Brand recall
ROI comparison
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to earn media visibility for your brand
Step 1: Define your goals
First, think about what kinds of topics you want to discuss in the media and which key news sources you want your brand to appear in. This gives you a clear path to start building effective PR content. Start by asking yourself what you want to achieve with this PR push. The answer might be something like: “We want to be seen as the leading expert in the entire AI in HR work-life theme.” After that, you’ll know where to begin exploring topic ideas and identifying the most relevant media outlets.
Step 2: Media analysis and creating story angles
This is a crucial part of the process. To offer relevant and newsworthy topics to journalists, you really need to understand both your target audience and theirs. What do they want to hear? What new angles can you bring to the table? To answer these questions, spend time analyzing the media: which publications are covering your chosen theme, what kinds of story angles they use, and what’s missing from the conversation in your opinion. By doing your own research, you’ll understand which key outlets to target and what kinds of story angles to use in the pitching phase and press release.
Step 3: Journalist search
One of the most common mistakes companies make in PR is poor targeting. They might know their ideal media outlets, but they don’t know who to contact. Often, they just send the press release to generic email addresses and hope someone sees it. In most cases, that’s not the most effective approach.
During the media analysis phase, identify stories you can use as references and learn from the journalists who wrote them. After that, do a broader journalist search to find the most relevant writers for your topic. Check their previous work, read it, and try to understand how to craft a story and angle that will resonate with them. You can use various PR tools for this, but it also requires a lot of manual work. Spend time on it and you’ll see better results.
Step 4: Reserve plenty of time for pitching
Another common PR mistake is the lack of proper pitching. Often, companies don’t pitch at all, they just send out a press release. However, competition for earned media attention is so intense that most press releases are often overlooked. That’s why you need to “sell” your story idea to journalists and engage them before wider distribution.
You can offer an embargo date when pitching your story to hand-picked journalists in advance. That way, you can be sure they won’t publish the story before the official release.
Step 5: Distribute to a wider audience
While doing media analysis and journalist search, you can identify the so-called VIP journalists to pitch under embargo, and others who might still be interested in the story. This helps you build a larger media list for mass distribution. Key takeaway: When publishing your press release, send it to both generic email addresses and all your key journalist contacts.
READ ABOUT OUR REFERENCES HERE
Bonus: Promote your earned media coverage
Once the news is out and you’re gaining media hits, don’t stop there. It’s your momentum, capitalize on it and use the PR content across your marketing and sales efforts. Media coverage builds trust, so include it in your sales decks and marketing channels to boost impact. Also, ask key people in your company to share it on their personal social media. This helps amplify visibility and increases touchpoints with potential clients.
READ MORE: Three things comms professionals wish they could tell their CEO about comms
