Tips on Generating Earned Media

Many companies that create content that’s going to be pitched to various publications tend to face rejection. In fact, it’s become a lot harder to generate earned media for companies as of late.

That’s because plenty of publications have stopped accepting contributed pieces, and the ones that still do have fewer resources available to their editors, that already have a big workload.

Because of that, many editors don’t have a lot of time to read through the pieces that are pitched to them in detail. Fortunately, they’re still ways that companies can generate earned media and get its benefits.

Value

When a company is trying to create and pitch content to publications, it needs to take two things into consideration.

The first thing is whether the content that was created is overly promotional. If any piece of content is too promotional, in general, publications will not be publishing it.

The second thing is whether the content itself will be valuable to the target audience of that publication. That means the content needs to be relevant, timely, well-written, and compelling for the readers of that publication.

When the content doesn’t fit all of those categories, it won’t be deemed as valuable by the editors of those publications, which can lead to rejection.

The best way to provide value without being too promotional is to create informative content that doesn’t mention the company’s name inside of it.

Data

To stand out from the crowd and get their content published, companies should be including interesting, new, or credible data from the research inside their content.

For instance, companies can create a survey regarding the top needs and challenges that their customers might face on a daily basis. All of the responses that are generated from that survey can be turned into insights to support the piece of content the company will be creating.

Content

As previously mentioned, most editors tend to be quite busy these days and they tend to receive a lot of pitches on a daily basis.

When a company is creating a piece of content, it should ensure that the entire article follows the style and tone of the publication it’s going to be pitched to, and the author that’s going to be submitting the piece of content itself needs to have credentials that match that content.

Additionally, the description and the title of the article need to be tailored to fit the publication that’s being pitched, so it speaks directly to the target audience of the publication.

Consistency

If a company pitches an article to a publication and doesn’t hear back from the editor of that publication, the business needs to follow up.

A general rule for following up is to do that a couple of times by email, and a third time through a phone call. If a company hasn’t heard back from a publication within two weeks, the content can be pitched to a different publication.

Additionally, once a piece of content has been published, companies should send a thank you email and continue sending content to that publication to build a better relationship.

This can increase the chances of the company receiving future earned media coverage a lot more, and can help in developing a long-lasting connection.

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Ronn Torossian is the Founder & Chairman of 5W Public Relations, one of the largest independently-owned PR firms in the United States.

With over 20 years of experience crafting and executing powerful narratives, Torossian is one of America’s most prolific and well-respected Public Relations professionals.

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