What you should know about earning media coverage

On Top of PR with Jason Mudd podcast: What you should know about earned media coverage

In this solocast episode, Jason Mudd discusses what journalists want from your media pitches.

Tune in to learn more!

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the episode here:

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

What doesn’t help your pitches
Following up — NO GAS
Use the phone to tell your story
Exclusive/advance/embargo — know the difference
Key elements to a good pitch

About Jason Mudd

Jason Mudd hosts On Top of PR. The World Communication Forum named him North America’s top PR leader. He is a professional public speaker, accredited public relations practitioner, published author, podcaster, and entrepreneur.

Jason is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist to some of America’s most admired and fastest-growing companies. His past PR clients include American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon.

He’s the CEO and managing partner of Axia Public Relations. Forbes Magazine named Axia one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

Quotables

"Public relations is not only media relations. Media relations isn’t what most people think it is either." — @JasonMudd9
"Earned media must be earned. If someone guarantees coverage, you’re buying ads, not PR." — @JasonMudd9
"The only audience that matters is the journalist’s audience — not your CEO or marketing team." — @JasonMudd9
"Great [news] stories beat great [media] relationships." — @JasonMudd9
"PR is a long-term business strategy — not a one-time campaign or quick win." — @JasonMudd9

Resources

Additional Episode Resources from Axia Public Relations:

Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR podcast.
Find out more about Axia Public Relations.

Episode Highlights

[00:01:00] PR Isn’t Just Media Relations
"This episode is especially for first time buyers, marketing leaders, and executives who want to make smarter, more strategic decisions when investing in public relations. So I'm going to start off with about a dozen... I'm going to talk about a dozen things that I think are important to keep in mind when you are exploring media relations."

[00:02:06] Earned Media Is Not Advertising
"Earned media can't be bought. It's not sponsored content. It's not advertorial. It must be earned. And the way you earn media coverage is by offering something newsworthy that a journalist believes is valuable to their audience."

[00:03:22] What Gets Covered Comes Down to Geography and Subject
"Decisions about what news an outlet covers almost always comes down to geography and subject matter. So, in other words, a daily metro newspaper is going to assign local writers and reporters to cover the local regional geography."

[00:05:12] Journalists Serve Their Audience First
"The only audience that matters is the journalist’s audience. Not your CEO, not your marketing team, not even the journalists themselves. The pitch must resonate with their readers, viewers, or listeners."

[00:07:22] Human Stories Outperform Corporate Messaging
"Even in B2B, the best stories are about real people—the people behind the innovation, the ones that are impacted by the story, the ones that are impacted by the solution. Human stories outperform corporate messaging every single time."

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Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:16:26

Jason

Public relations is not media relations. And media relations isn't what most people think it is either. If you're a marketing executive or business leader exploring PR, this episode will help you avoid most common and costly mistakes that organizations make when hiring a PR firm.

00:00:16:26 - 00:00:26:25

Announcer

Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd, presented by ReviewMaxer.

00:00:26:25 - 00:00:36:21

Jason

Hi, I'm Jason Mudd, and you're listening to On Top of PR. Today, I'm flying solo to give you straight talk about media relations. What is it? Why? What it isn't. And what you need to know before you hire a PR firm.

00:00:36:23 - 00:01:00:19

Jason

This episode is especially for first time buyers, marketing leaders, and executives who want to make smarter, more strategic decisions when investing in public relations. So I'm going to start off with about a dozen I'm going to talk about. Let's start over. I'm going to talk about a dozen things that I think are important to keep in mind when you are exploring, media relations.

00:01:00:22 - 00:01:26:13

Jason

For earned media coverage. And what most people think about is PR, but I want to start off with number one, which is a foundational truth. Public relations is not the same as media relations. Media relations, pitching journalists and earning news coverage is just one piece of the PR puzzle. Yet earned media is often the primary attribute people think of and focus on when they think of and talk about PR.

00:01:26:16 - 00:01:57:24

Jason

Public relations is so much more. It includes thought leadership, content strategy, crisis communication, reputation management, executive visibility, speaking engagements, award recognition, community relations, stakeholder engagement, and even internal communication. There's a lot going on when you think about PR. It's not just media coverage. Smart organizations don't just chase headlines. They invest in long term influence and reputation building activities that are primarily what public relations does best.

00:01:57:24 - 00:02:06:27

Jason

Secondly, and this is critical, earned media is not advertising earned media can't be bought. It's not sponsored content.

00:02:06:27 - 00:02:27:19

Jason

It's not advertorial. It must be earned. And that the way you earn media coverage is by offering something newsworthy that a journalist believes is valuable to their audience. The key part there is to their audience. So if someone guarantees you coverage or sells you placements, you're not buying PR, you're buying ads. And that's fine. You can buy ads.

00:02:27:21 - 00:02:52:06

Jason

Just don't confuse earned media with paid media. The third item I think that's very important is understanding that a press release is not a strategy. Sure, a news release can help you. Support can help you secure a news story, but it's not required. Some of the most successful earned media coverage and the biggest earned media coverage we've gotten our clients over the years did not involve a news release at all.

00:02:52:08 - 00:03:22:12

Jason

What it involved was a compelling and timely pitch, a pitch that fit the the audiences. The outlet's audience and their editorial focus. So meaning it was the right fit for their news outlet. The fourth thing is decisions about what news an outlet covers almost always comes down to geography and subject matter geography, meaning the reach of their outlet and the audience they serve, or the subject matter, or both.

00:03:22:15 - 00:03:54:03

Jason

So, in other words, a daily metro newspaper is going to assign local writers and and reporters to cover the local regional geography. They're not likely not as likely to have national, news stories in a geographic daily Metropolitan newspaper. Right. And a trade media outlet is most likely going to focus on the profession or the trade or subject matter that they, tend to cover and have become known for.

00:03:54:06 - 00:04:20:21

Jason

Journalist ultimately evaluate pitches based on news value, news judgment, and elements of news. Those elements of news include timeliness. Impact. Proximity. Novelty. Conflict. Human interest. If your story doesn't check those boxes, it's unlikely to get covered. If you want to know more about elements of news and the difference between news value news judgment, we'll put a link to this in our episode notes.

00:04:20:23 - 00:04:45:00

Jason

Look specifically for ten elements of news and this will give you a good background on it. But again, just remember almost every news story comes a news decision comes down to does this serve the geography or the subject matter that our outlet is known to cover? If you've got the wrong geography and the wrong subject matter, you're pitching the wrong outlet section.

00:04:45:05 - 00:05:12:24

Jason

Or excuse me, topic five here. And this is the part that surprises most people. The only audience that matters is the journalist audience. Not your CEO, not your marketing team, not even the journalists themselves. The pitch must resonate with their readers, viewers or listeners. That's who they're serving. If they are writing a story that doesn't fit the geography, subject matter, or interest of their audience, then they have completely whiffed.

00:05:12:25 - 00:05:36:11

Jason

They've made a mistake, and if they fail to serve that audience, they'll lose the audience. When they lose the audience, they lose advertisers. When they lose advertisers, they lose revenue. So journalism is in the for profit business. They're in the business of making money. And the way they make money is writing great content that's relevant to the geography and subject matter their audience desires from them.

00:05:36:13 - 00:06:06:00

Jason

And when they do that well and do it right, they build loyalty among their audience. When they do it wrong, they lose their audience. And so that's why the next tip, number six is, yes, relationships with news or media outlets and newsrooms can help, but they do not override editorial standards. The best analogy I've ever heard is I could be the best man at the Wall Street Journal editors wedding, and he still won't run my pitch if it doesn't fit the outlet's news value.

00:06:06:02 - 00:06:31:04

Jason

A compelling story always matters more than a strong relationship. A smart question you might ask a PR firm is who do you have relationships with in newsrooms today? Who? What contacts do you have? How well-known are you in newsrooms? And that seems like a great question on the surface. Until you really get in the business and you realize that a great story is better than having a strong relationship because a great story is going to get covered.

00:06:31:06 - 00:06:53:03

Jason

A great relationship helps. It helps get a foot in the door. Might help take a lukewarm story and push it across the finish line. If you've got a friend and you become a trusted resource in the newsroom, but at the end of the day, what really matters is how compelling that news story is. So I could have a great news story, go to a complete stranger, and they're going to run my news story if they can verify that it's legitimate.

00:06:53:10 - 00:07:22:04

Jason

And again, it fits the geography and subject matter that they're looking for. Number seven, if you want coverage, focus on people, not products, brands or buildings. Even in B2B, the best stories are about real people the people behind the innovation, the ones that are impacted by the story, the ones that are, impacted by the solution. Human stories outperform corporate messaging every single time.

00:07:22:06 - 00:07:45:23

Jason

Something I like to explain to people is, you've never watched a movie about a corporation or a legal entity. You might have seen a movie that was about a company. There was, a TV series about Uber. There's been, movies about Steve Jobs and Apple. But the trick is, or the, the point is the the show is actually about the characters.

00:07:45:23 - 00:08:14:21

Jason

You've watched movies about characters, characters within that organization. They're successes, struggles, or failures. So characters count, find the human interest angle within what you're trying to pitch to the media. Don't just think they're going to cover a company or a corporation or legal entity or building buildings. Can't talk buildings don't have a story to tell. The humans that built that building have a story to tell them, and it's important we never lose sight of that.

00:08:14:23 - 00:08:43:23

Jason

Number eight, I want to talk about, a real example that will might surprise a lot of our, audience who's not familiar with, PR and specifically with earned media coverage, the New York Times and a small trade publication once featured a company around the same time. Guess which one drove more traffic to their website, the trade publication, and it did so nearly by two x the amount of traffic.

00:08:43:25 - 00:09:18:14

Jason

Why is that? That's because the audience was highly targeted and actively engaged, meaning that the story focused on a company right that was relevant to an industry trade to 100% of that audience, or to that market. Whereas running in The Wall Street Journal or New York Times did not have the same level of interest among its audience, which can be a combination of multiple professions, B2B and B2C individuals.

00:09:18:17 - 00:09:48:10

Jason

And so when your audience is highly targeted and actively engaged, it's more likely to convert. Here's another little bonus insight for you stories written or covered about your expertise will more likely attract buyers or people wanting to buy from you, than stories about your organization, stories about your organization, your growth, your company. Telling its story often actually attract sellers, people trying to sell to you.

00:09:48:12 - 00:10:18:19

Jason

So in other words, as a public relations professional, when I give my commentary or insights to a B2B trade media outlet, maybe it's PR week, or maybe it's to, you know, Forbes or Entrepreneur Inc, and I'm giving expert advice and insights, maybe even expert topics, tips and trends to help the readers who which are business people. I'm more likely to get people contacting me saying, I saw you quoted.

00:10:18:19 - 00:10:40:17

Jason

I really liked what you had to say. I'd like to talk to you about, you know, getting help from your company. But if I have a feature story written maybe in a local business journal, or maybe even a local daily newspaper, or I'm featured on a podcast or something like that, I'm more likely to get people calling me saying, hey, I saw you in this magazine or on this podcast and about your great growth and all that.

00:10:40:17 - 00:11:07:09

Jason

Could I interest you in a, you know, life insurance for your employees? Can I offer you interest, you in landscaping or janitorial services or office supplies or coffee machine or internet services for your locations? Right. So the stories that are about your expertise actually attract buyers. The stories about your company often attract sellers. And short stories. They often perform better than long ones because they actually get read.

00:11:07:14 - 00:11:32:11

Jason

People have short attention spans. I have had clients literally land $1 million piece of business with a news brief that's about three inches, in a print print business publication, whether it's a local business journal or a local daily newspapers business section, where it was just enough to give information about the company, and somebody picked up the phone and called and said, hey, I'm interested in the services you offer.

00:11:32:11 - 00:11:55:20

Jason

Can we have lunch? Can we talk? And long story short, that person ended up moving their million dollar account over to our client, based off of one brief, literally a brief news story and a daily newspaper number nine impressions and placements are not the whole story. Ask yourself better questions than looking at how many impressions do we get?

00:11:55:20 - 00:12:22:16

Jason

How many, articles do we have published? How many people did it reach? And please don't talk about advertising value equivalency. Instead, ask better questions. Was the outlet relevant to your ideal buyer? Is your ideal buyer consuming this outlet? Did it support your communication goals? Did it influence awareness, perception, or engagement? Did it build trust considerations and decisions to buy from or support your organization's efforts?

00:12:22:18 - 00:12:40:25

Jason

PR isn't just about quantity, it's about quality and alignment. Although a bonus tip would be that frequency is very important too. So it's not just one media appearance from a shotgun effect that's going to get you media coverage or get you, the market to shift over and be aware of you and suddenly want to start doing business with you.

00:12:40:27 - 00:13:05:21

Jason

It's actually going to be the idea of getting frequency. But, quality and an alignment with your messaging and audience. Frequency is what's important. I always tell people, just like in real estate, they say it's location, location, location. In advertising, it's about frequency. Frequency, frequency. Same thing with PR. You want to make sure you're frequently appearing. You feel omnipresent.

00:13:05:21 - 00:13:22:21

Jason

You're always in the media. You're always getting attention for your brand. But you want to make sure it's also the quality, quality in alignment if you're in the wrong news outlet, if you're, you know, speaking to, stay at home moms about your B2B services, it's certainly not a good fit.

00:13:22:21 - 00:13:50:20

Jason

All right. The 10th thing I want to share with you is once you earn coverage, don't let it fade. Be intentional about keeping the build the momentum and take the responsibility, the ownership and the leadership of repurposing this content to get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. We have a blog post with this content that I'll share in the episode notes with you that go goes deeper into this topic, but for now, here's several things you can do with a piece of earned media coverage.

00:13:50:20 - 00:14:09:21

Jason

First of all, you can share it with your sales team. They can use that to, they can share it with your leads. This is going to help them both soften the sale so they feel less like a salesperson and more credible in the eyes of your, leads. That's also going to warm up the sale and make people like you trust you and want to do business with you more.

00:14:09:24 - 00:14:33:26

Jason

You could use your earned media coverage in your recruiting process. Very similarly. You could have your recruiter sharing this media coverage with the, the candidates that are in your pipeline. You can also boost the article or the coverage. In search engines, using paid links. And then you can also mention it in your company newsletter, both internally and externally.

00:14:34:04 - 00:14:53:20

Jason

You can cover it in your blog. You can, post about it on social media. And then you can also turn it into retargeting ads. Like I said, we've got a blog post about all about this that will include in the episode notes. I really encourage you to check it out because it's pretty comprehensive. But just remember, earned media doesn't have to be a one time event.

00:14:53:20 - 00:15:15:27

Jason

It becomes a credibility asset that you can continue to promote. All right. Tip number 11 is a quick word of caution. I see this mistake happen quite a bit. Especially with, people who haven't hired a PR firm in the past or just unsophisticated buyers of PR services or just, are not thinking through the entire process.

00:15:15:29 - 00:15:39:04

Jason

Don't buy PR tools such as media, databases, monitoring software, wire services. Unless you have a specialist hired and they're ready to run or operate them right. The tools don't get you coverage the people behind them do. Buying PR software without a professional is like buying a race car without a driver, right? Or buying a racehorse without a jockey.

00:15:39:07 - 00:16:12:09

Jason

It's just not a good idea. I would never recommend anybody go out and buy, you know, a high end graphic design software suite or video editing suite until somebody has already been trained on how to use them, and that person's already been procured or hired or assigned to do this work within your organization. So if you wouldn't go buy these assets before you have somebody ready, willing and able and trained and knowledgeable to use them, why would you let a salesperson sell you on buying a media database, media monitoring software, or a wire services contract until you're ready to go?

00:16:12:11 - 00:16:32:15

Jason

And just another tip if you're going to hire a PR firm and they're of any credibility or sophistication, they not only already have these tools internally, but they have these tools and more. They're also buying them at a volume discount. And if they're like our PR firm, they don't charge you any extra for having access and using these tools on your behalf.

00:16:32:22 - 00:16:56:19

Jason

Not all PR firms do that. Do it that way. But I'm just telling you that you don't need to go out and buy this type of content, or this type of these tools and software, until you've got somebody ready to use them. Especially because let's say you buy a 12 month contract of it, it might take you one, 2 or 3 months to get the PR firm, selected, signed and starting work.

00:16:56:21 - 00:17:16:26

Jason

All right, the final tip I've got for you today is that PR is a long term business strategy. It's not a one time occurrence or one time campaign. It's not a stunt. It's not a quick win. It's not a quick gimmick. It is genuinely about building reputation. And Warren Buffett said it takes, 20 years to build a reputation.

00:17:16:29 - 00:17:39:11

Jason

The best work comes from years of consistent effort. I know this from running our Axia for 22 years, that the clients that are with us the longest get the best results year over year. The clients that don't, stay with PR for the long for the long term. Sure. They get some great wins, but it fades just as quick.

00:17:39:11 - 00:18:02:00

Jason

PR is a long term endeavor and a long term investment, so the best PR results come from years of consistent efforts. And when your PR partner is delivering value, they should become a strategic extension of your team. And that's a competitive advantage for your organization. Your PR firm should not be treated as a vendor that you rotate in and out, or someone you call upon occasionally.

00:18:02:02 - 00:18:28:15

Jason

I really believe that PR is a long term endeavor. It's something that takes years to build a strong reputation, and you should be protecting it on an ongoing basis. So these are 12 things. I think that every person buying public relations services should know about public relations. And more specifically, we spent a lot of time today focusing on, media relations, which is a specialization of public relations.

00:18:28:17 - 00:18:53:04

Jason

And media relations is an attempt or an effort to build relationships with the media in the pursuit, long term pursuit of getting media coverage. If this episode was helpful to you, I'd love for you to share it with a colleague, a friend who might be considering PR for the first time, or a marketing colleague who's curious to know more about how PR actually works or when we all know this.

00:18:53:11 - 00:19:11:16

Jason

The executive that's really busy, who thinks they might know a lot about PR, or maybe they're willing to meet. They don't know much about PR at all, but they know it's important. They know it's valuable, and you want to set the right expectations with them. When they start talking about the potentially hiring a PR firm or even hiring an in-house PR department,

00:19:11:16 - 00:19:22:24

Jason

you can find more resources like this on our website at Axia pr.com/resources, including our blogs, webinars, guides, and other PR planning tools.

00:19:22:27 - 00:19:44:22

Jason

In fact, we've got a calculator that you can use to figure out if it's better. And, more or less expensive for your organization to hire an internal PR department versus outsourcing to an expert PR team and now I want to say thanks for listening. We appreciate you and our audience. And we're growing every up with every episode, and we really appreciate it.

00:19:44:29 - 00:19:58:13

Jason

It wouldn't be possible without you. Your, your faithfulness to our show, you telling others about our show and you leaving a positive review as well as subscribing to our show. So thank you for that. So I'm Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. I'll see you next time as we help you stay on top of PR.

00:19:58:13 - 00:20:54:04

Announcer

This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode and check out past episodes at ontopofpr.com.

About your host Jason Mudd

On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

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