Do understand what content works best for earned media
Wouldn’t it be great if the content your brand invests so much time and resources in could earn attention from the media?
More people would see your content, and your brand would get a credibility boost from a third-party source. That’s the magic of combining content and PR. Whether you wear the public relations hat or work with the PR team, you can create alchemy for your content and brand.
To do that, follow these dos and don’ts of media outreach (adapted and updated from my talk at Content Marketing World 2023).
Do understand what content works best for earned media
Not all content you create will work well for the media. Among the content that won’t work:
- Sales-focused: Journalists and editorially focused media don’t want to become shills for your brand and products. Save sales content for other channels.
- Undifferentiated: Media outlets also don’t want to publish the same content as everybody else.
- Weak: If you don’t bring your content to life with data, statistics, or customer stories, don’t waste time pitching it to media outlets.
- AI-generated: If the editors wanted bot-created content, they could do it themselves.
What content works well? I find these categories play well with third-party publications:
- Thought leadership: Executive interviews offer great material. Every few months, I interview my client’s CEO and create a thought leadership piece for the company blog. I pitched one of those articles to the publication Food Industry Executive, and they published it. In fact, the article on industry trends became the outlet’s most-read story that month, garnering yet another piece of coverage. Then, an editor at Cheese Market News read it and asked to run it, too. We revised it for that publication and got more coverage based on something that otherwise would have gathered dust on the company blog.
Read More at Content Marketing Institute
