Five Winning Earned Media Campaigns

Earned media is an excellent way to leverage traditional media venues, influencers, and third parties to grow brand awareness and sales. In a previous article, “How Earned Media Can Boost Your Brand’s Reputation and Sales,” we discuss the benefits, and we provide evidence of its effectiveness. 

There is no one way to run an earned media campaign, as it can be rolled out in a number of different ways, including:

• Review Sites

• Public Relations Campaigns

• Sponsored Posts

• Guest Blogging

• Podcast Appearances

• Influencer Marketing

• Guest Expert Appearances

• Insertion in News Stories

The list could go on as the only limitation is your imagination and time. The lines between earned media, and influencer marketing, or public relations quickly blur. For Prevail Marketing, it is immaterial how you categorize any given program, because they are all needed and all work together.

Today, we are going to discuss five earned media programs and strategies. We will do a deep dive into many of the others in upcoming articles.  We have already covered many of these in previous articles, including: influencer marketing,  review sites.  We wanted to expand that landscape of what is possible. We hope this encourages you to think outside the box and produce campaigns that deliver results.

Five Earned Media Campaigns and Strategies

Earned media campaigns and strategies have become increasingly abundant in today's digital age. The power of earned media lies in its ability to generate organic exposure, engagement, and sales. Often, different earned media campaign strategies, together, create a multiplier effect that amplifies their impact. For instance, a well-executed influencer marketing campaign can generate both earned media, through social media mentions and shared content, as well as traditional media coverage through press mentions and interviews. Similarly, a successful public relations campaign can attract the attention of influencers and journalists, leading to further earned media opportunities. By leveraging the strengths of different approaches, brands can maximize their reach and create a comprehensive and integrated marketing strategy. Here are a few examples for your consideration:

Generating a Study or Research Report– One tactic, that we have used for several clients, is to generate an industry or consumer study. For example, we once did a research report, for a recruiting company, that detailed the compensation and benefits for a particular industry. Not only was this report downloaded en masse by their targeted audience, but it was picked up by traditional media and shared and amplified through social sharing. Our client would not have been able to afford this level of exposure if it was generated by a paid-demand program. Of course, there was a cost to generate the report, but the brand awareness and phone calls they received more than justified that effort. Besides, over the course of the next two quarters, we sliced and diced material that had not made the report and produced additional content in the form of blogs, eBooks, and social media posts.

Content Collaborations– One of the great benefits of earned media is to be able to leverage the social reach of others. In the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, we have at times become matchmakers. On a few occasions, we have found that two of our clients have complimentary products, or services, and serve similar target markets. We have created great collaborations where each introduced the other to their customers in an entertaining fashion. We did a combination of videos, podcasts, and webinars to bring the two groups together. Both clients received marked increases by leveraging the other.

While we created this scenario with two clients, it can be easily duplicated in the wild. The only difficulty is convincing two marketing departments to work together for the greater good.

Run Social Media Contests– If you want something to go viral, give something away. It does not have to be a lot of effort to generate an extensive amount of brand awareness. A recent example was a post that MrBeast recently made. For those who are living under a rock, MrBeast is one of the most successful influencers who has created a whole industry and over 28 million followers on Twitter (I know, X). He made the following simple post, and within two days had over 419,000 comments, 3.8 million shares, and 2.2 million likes. Those numbers will continue to grow.

Now, MrBeast did not do this just to get more exposure. He had a two-pronged strategy to earn revenue from X for the amount of activity he generated on the platform and to get some of those to visit his online store.

Subject Matter Experts– We have had clients who were, or wanted to be seen as, industry leaders in their vertical for authoritative news venues. While, in some cases, it was vanity-driven, we did find ways to convert that desire to brand awareness and sales. We first spent time creating content that allowed the client to be seen as an expert, and then, we moved him up the media food chain with stories about their expertise, product, and success in media markets. We started at the local level and progressively moved them up as they demonstrated knowledge and the ability to speak through the cameras to the audience.

• Level 1 – Industry Specific Publications (Business publications, such as the Journal or industry-specific magazines)

• Level 2 - Local Market Print/Podcasts (New York Times, LA Times, etc.)

• Level 3 – Local Market Televisions (Morning shows, local news programming)

• Level 4 -  National Magazines (WSJ, Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, or McKinsey Quarterly. etc.)

• Level 5 – National Broadcast and Cable News and Business Shows (TV shows/analysts (Squawk Box, Mad Money, etc.)

In the beginning, it might be as small as securing timely and educational bylines in articles or editorial opportunities in local or national press. But, as you build a foundation, you will become the go-to person for a particular topic.

The company CEO, and other leaders, should become guests on national broadcasts (television and podcasts). This will not only help the brand and provide credibility but will also build the framework, should they later seek to go public or be acquired.

Influencers – We have already spent a great deal of time speaking about how you can leverage the time, talent, effort, reach, and relationships of influencers to generate brand awareness and product sales. The way this coincides with earned media is where you work in concert to create the content for the influencers. If you are talking to major players like  MrBeast or Altcoin Daily, they don’t need your help to create content. So, move down the food chain a bit, and find a subject matter expert who can use your help and who caters to your targeted personas.

Help them create something powerful that both elevates them and shows them using your product or describing how they benefited from it. It is a win-win situation. Let them brand the content as solely their own as it will seem more truthful and authentic.

This is just one of the many ways that earned media and influencer marketing can be combined to produce results. For other ideas, we have a series of articles that we have written on influencer marketing. I encourage you to check them out for more ideas. Here are just a few of the articles that we wrote:

• The ALMOST Definitive Guide To Influencer Marketing

• Who Are Influencers?

• The Science Behind Influencer Marketing

• Influencers - How to Measure Performance

• How to Find the Right Influencer

Conclusion

Earned media is a crucial aspect of any company's marketing strategy. To achieve increased brand awareness and growth, we shared five strategies that your company can adopt and implement. These strategies serve as a sample and can be easily duplicated. By leveraging earned media, you can effectively build your brand's reputation, expand your reach, and grow your company.