Paid Press vs. Earn Press #EXPLAINED

I spoke to one of my clients last week who told me that she had a “hater" making fun of her for hiring a publicist, because in her opinion, she was basically "paying for press vs. earning it." As much as this got under my skin, I held back my frustration and decided to write an article about the difference between paid press vs. earned press. 😏

This is actually an amazing question to contemplate ..like, why would you work with a publicist, or pitch yourself to the media, instead of just paying for ad space? My personal take is #EXPLAINED below:

Paid advertisements are EXTREMELY expensive.

For example, one press ad in Good Housekeeping print is $500,155. My client currently has 8 secured press placements and counting. This means that she paid .6% of $500,000 for 8 placements instead of $500K, or something super pricey like that, for just one placement….yes, PR is a steal! Our job as a publicist is to introduce our clients the media and gain you organic press. 

When you pay for an ad there is no major screening process

→ meaning that there's no one telling you that you aren't exactly a fit for their publication or that you aren't newsworthy enough to get highlighted…because ultimately, they want your money! This can present a number of problems: 

1. you may receive ZERO conversion from your ad to sales due to the lack of interest in your services, products, etc. 

2. You can't brag about your paid feature, post the logo on your website, or tell your clients about it…because you paid for it. It is not organic. You can't start your conversations with “I am a Good Housekeeping featured brand” because that isn't necessarily true 

3. The investment is almost never worth the cost due to the conversions (I'm sorry sales teams don't HATE ME) 

No one is seeking you out!

Unless you're Beyoncé and have spent years in the limelight, no one is going to find your brand and be like “Hey, she's great. I am going to write about her. OR, hey, she's awesome. I am going to have her on my show." And don't get me wrong, it can totally happen…but this scenario typically comes with extreme circumstances, like a video going viral overnight… For example, Ellen Degeneres is really good at asking people to be on her talk show, but her initiation ALWAYS starts with a viral video or something in that realm. (This is an old example, but she asked her team to go find the kid from “Damn Daniel, back at it again with the white vans" …because that boy went viral on YouTube, and that's how Ellen and millions of other people found his video. See what I'm saying? (By the way, I still find that video hilarious…the link is here if anyone wants to reminisce)

Earned press = trust.

This one requires some education around PR, what we do, and how we work with the media! So when I have a client, my job is to email media contacts with a brief story angle and ask if they are interested in pursuing my clients for coverage. One story angle may be: “Why Entrepreneurship is a Self-Discovery Journey.” After that, they can reply with a “yes” or “no.” (There are a number of ways to connect with the media, but just for the sake of this newsletter, I'll mention “email,” which is the one that I use the most.) This means that my media contacts have FULL control over whether they want to feature my client or not. If they say “yes” to my outreach, they are genuinely interested in covering you for their audience members, because you provide VALUE! They feel like this story needs to be told amongst their readers, listeners, and so on!! You were covered in the media for a reason, not because you paid for it  → aka building trust amongst your clients or prospective leads.

You can't brag about an ad

I mentioned this earlier, but it's true! And this is because it wasn't earned press…(typically, if you read an article that comes from a paid opportunity, you'll see a little “sponsored by” notification at the top of the article) → speaking of earned bragging points, STORY TIME, I worked with one client back in October 2020…and to 👏this 👏day 👏, she is starts every single workshop, LIVE, Clubhouse room, etc. with “I am a Forbes featured coach” and HELL YES SHE WAS!! She was organically featured in Forbes, because the writer saw my inquiry, realized her value, and decided to feature her for free! Yes, I had to reach out to the writer first, but if I didn't, that writer would have never known the type of value THAT my client has to share. And again, the writer could have very well stumbled across this coach's social media feed and decided to write about her, etc., but it is VERY unlikely. And in their defense, it's super hard to come up with a story angle based on trolling someone's Instagram. The writer would have had to scroll through her posts, listen to LIVEs, and then finally say to herself “oh, I see! I love her and can write about THIS part of her business. " That process takes precious TIME, something writers don't have. → Let me tell you, I give them SO MUCH CREDIT for what they do! This email took me over two hours to write, and they can just pump out content like it's nobody's business. Gosh, I love them forever <3 (crush rant, #over!)

Earned press gives you a chance to speak your value to a MUCH larger audience

Unless you have MILLIONS of dollars on-hand to pay for recurring press → paying for constant advertisements is unrealistic. AND yes, our social pages are super needed and amazing to share your value on a daily basis, but we can only reach so many individuals. This is due to algorithms and other things that stop us from growing our audience at a rapid rate, and in turn, hinder us from sharing our knowledge with the world. By having a publicist, you are able to constantly share your value with writers, producers, hosts, and editors at your favorite news outlets without the hefty cost of $500K every 👏single👏 time👏. (Refer back to bullet number one. 8 press features vs. 1 makes a lot more sense due to the amount of people that you're able to reach. This means instead of a potential 4M audience members if we use Good Housekeeping as an example again, my client reached around 1B and then some?! 😱) AND…and it was free!! Just to clarify - publicists help you earn press by being your representation, liaison, and team member; you're not paying FOR the press!! You earned it, because you are AWESOME and have magic to share…doesn't that feel better than paying half a million dollars to speak your truth to just one pool of people from your ad?

And Finally, earned press has a much better ROI in the long run

Media coverage can help elevate your brand in so many ways, but it takes time to achieve a long press trail! Working with a publicist to gain much earned coverage makes so much more sense, because:

1. The investment is much cheaper than paid opportunities, as we now know!

2. Writers & producers CHOOSE to cover you, meaning you have free rein to brag about your press. This allows you to be perceived as ‘credible’ amongst your audience.

3. You are able to stay relevant for a much longer time. → Generating earned press is more cost efficient, because you can pay someone a small fee to gain earned media opportunities or do the outreach yourself for FREE. Being featured in one outlet is cool; like AMAZING if you are featured in Forbes. However, continued exposure = trust amongst your audience members, new leads, and so on. This is due to the amount of times they see you in the news, so they can be like - “wow, this coach keeps getting featured on all of my favorite podcasts and publications. I need to work with her. She MUST be awesome.” See what I'm saying? It is a ripple effect that takes time, but the pay-out is SO MUCH GREATER. You can gain trust, grow your audience, brag about features, and who knows…MAYBE EVEN ELLEN WILL FIND YOU #rippleeffect

DISCLAIMER* This email is not to cause shame amongst ANYONE who works with paid advertisements. Hiring a publicist vs. paying for ad space presents different types of goals. → This is just my personal take on why earned press is so valuable in our industry :)