SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: PAID MEDIA ISN’T BAD!

🐘 ADDRESSING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM 🐘

Firstly, if you’ve hired a PR consultant or a PR Agency to secure media coverage for you, then inadvertently you’re paying for media coverage. You may not be paying a media outlet directly, but you are paying for someone to secure media coverage for you

Secondly, if you’re paying to be in a membership with other journalists, or you subscribe to a platform that emails you journalist requests, by default you’re also paying for the opportunity. Again, you’re not paying a media outlet directly, but you are paying to be where the opportunities are shared.

Now, let’s not get this twisted, this isn’t what people are irritated by. They’re irritated by media outlets that charge to feature your brand.

Before I continue…..

….I’d like to remind you that media outlets are also a business. They have a team of journalists, editors and picture editors they need to pay. They also have overheads that are required to run their business.

Once upon a time, media outlets could rely on advertising revenue to keep them in business. Because of the advertisers, they could also offer pages of (free) editorial content.

But as the world changed, so did the way that people consume content, particularly adverts. With more ways for people to interact with content (social media, affiliate marketing, email marketing etc), advertising spend with media outlets decreased.

Many brands believed that moving advertising spend away from media outlets and into social media ads would deliver more bang for their buck and therefore increased their ad spend. (Plus it’s much easier to track performance in the backend of each platform) It’s not so easy to track the performance of an online or offline ad.

So, with advertising spend declining, media outlets had to do something to generate revenue and keep themselves afloat. Which is how we get to paid media placements.

TAKING A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

When I first started working in PR back in 2004, publications would have three core pillars:

1. Editorial content

2. Adverts

3. Advertorials

Editorial content was made up of news items, features, interviews, shopping pages, fashion, food and travel. This is where staff journalists would work with brands to help them create (free) content.

However, with editorial content, the brand in question couldn’t do anything salesy as this was deemed to commercially benefit the brand. Editorial content therefore had to be balanced and unbiased (it’s why you won’t see anyone actually promoting their brand in editorial content)

Adverts were paid for depending on how much space on the page that brands wanted. Typically choosing anything from a quarter of a page, right the way through to double-page spreads. The more space they wanted, the more expensive the space would be.

Adverts gave brands the opportunity to overtly promote their product or service and include a call to action.

Advertorials, on the other hand, were a hybrid of the two. You were paying for space on the page, but it was written in a way that looked like editorial content, but could be more salesy in nature.

An advertorial was seen as a win-win solution: the brand got to focus more on promotion, pushing their own message and narrative and the media outlet was paid for the space – yippee 🙌

I don’t think this measurement tool is used any more, but editorial coverage was believed to have an AVE (Advertising Equivalent Value) that was 3x more valuable than an advert, hence why brands put so much emphasis on media coverage as it was ‘worth’ much more

(And if you think about it, you’re more likely to read and respond to content as opposed to an ad)

THE STATE OF PLAY TODAY

The print industry is in decline and online coverage is king. But online advertising isn’t as lucrative as print advertising (plus it behaves differently to print advertising.) With print advertising you physically had to flick past the ads, so even though you were flicking, you were still absorbing some of what you were seeing.

With digital advertising you can scroll past adverts or remove them from your screen (although you’ve probably noticed how popular ‘pop-up’ adverts are, even though they’re super annoying for the reader!)

So, if advertising spend (and space) is in decline, how are media outlets supposed to generate revenue? 🤔

The answer, my friend, lies in charging brands to write their own content, in exchange for it being positioned in front of their loyal audience. (Let’s not forget that a media outlet is a commodity that has curated its audience over decades – why should you get access to them for free?)

PAID CONTRIBUTORS

Paying to be a contributor is a business model that is usually adopted by the big business titles in America. Media outlets like Forbes and Entrepreneur have been doing this (very successfully) for years and make great revenue from it.

I haven’t looked into the cost of joining The Forbes Council, but the last I heard (which was in 2020), the cost was $10,000 per year.

In comparison, the Entrepreneur Leadership Network is around $3000 per year. While your eyes may be watering at the investment, you can usually post as often as you like and both media outlets will share your articles on their social media channels, which helps your brand reach an even wider audience across multiple platforms.

I dread to think that it would cost to advertise in Forbes or Entrepreneur, but I’m confident that it’s higher than $10,000 and $3000 and that will just be for one advert 😱 All of a sudden paying to become a contributor seems like a bargain!

There’s another media outlet that also follows this business model, that has caused a lot of outrage on social media in recent years.

In fact, just this morning I saw a post about it in a Facebook Group where people were saying that it’s a scam!

The media outlet in question is called Brainz, which is a fairly new media outlet based in Europe. Usually, if people haven’t heard of an outlet before they’ll disregard it or not take it seriously.

The likes of Forbes and Entrepreneur have been around for decades and have had time to build their reputation and credibility. And while the same cannot be said for Brainz, it’s certainly not a scam (in fact, I’ve been featured in it before. Click here to read my article)

DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU HEAR

I have a confession to make….

….In 2020 I received an email from Brainz, inviting me to become a contributor. I was flattered. But that was soon shattered when I shared it a mastermind I was in. It turns out that most of the other business owners had also been contacted (cue the sounds of a tiny violin!)

The coach running the mastermind also chimed in to say that she had also been contacted, but that she wouldn’t ever pay for media coverage in a publication that no-one has ever heard of.

Naturally, my opinion of Brainz turned sour (which was also based on additional information I’d heard about them buying their social media followers – although the business owners who told me that didn’t pay me for the services I provided her, so let’s take her opinion with a pinch of salt!)

Over the past few years, several entrepreneurs have asked me for my opinion on Brainz as they had been contacted to be a contributor. Regardless of my personal opinion, I’ve always given this advice:

❓ Is it consumed by your ideal customers and clients?

❓Are they already publishing content that’s similar to what you do?

❓Do you have knowledge and expertise that can help their audience?

❓Do you want to raise your profile, boost your credibility and drive traffic into your business?

❓Do you have the budget to invest?

If the answer is YES 🙌, then there’s no reason NOT to become a contributor (especially as their fee is a fraction of what you’d pay to become a contributor for Forbes or Entrepreneur)

My confession doesn’t end there….

….last year I had a coffee call with another business owner I met during a 12-month group training programme. The topic of Brainz came up and I told her about my previous experience of them, sharing the negative vibes that had influenced my opinion.

She told me that she had paid to be a contributor for them and that it resulted in several paying clients. In that moment I congratulated her and realised that I’d allowed the opinion of others to cloud my own judgement, with zero experience of my own to form an opinion 😵 I was MORTIFIED!

The lesson was received loud and clear:

Don’t form a judgement on something you haven’t experienced yourself. And just because it’s someone else’s truth, doesn’t mean it’s the actual truth

GETTING BACK TO THE POINT….

Paid media isn’t bad.

It’s also not ‘worse’ than earned (free) media coverage.

In fact, you could argue that paying to be a contributor is more lucrative than earned media, purely because of the volume of articles you can publish, therefore massively increasing your visibility and speeding up the know-like-trust factor.

(It’s worth baring in mind at this point that it takes time for journalists to trust you as a media source, so it can take several months for them to start coming to you to ask you to share your expertise in their next article)

Paid Media and Earned Media are both powerful at driving your business forward. They also play a vital role in the PESO Model (Google it if you’ve never heard of it, or read my latest newsletter on LinkedIn)

From my perspective as a PR Consultant & Reputation Manager, clients invest in my ability to secure earned media coverage for them. It’s where my strengths lie and that’s what they’re buying into.

I will always prioritise eared media for that reason, but I wouldn’t ever dismiss paid opportunities (as long as they’re aligned with the objectives of my clients)

TO RECAP:

If you’re presented with an opportunity to pay for editorial space, or to pay to become a contributor, ask yourself these questions:

✅ Is the media outlet consumed by your ideal customers and clients?

✅ Does the media outlet already create content on your aligned topics and are of expertise?

✅ Do you have expertise that you want to share, to raise your profile, boost credibility and drive more traffic into your sales funnel?

✅ Do you have the budget to invest?

If the answer is YES 🙌 then you know what to do…

….and don’t EVER be shamed into believing that you’re ‘less than’ because you’ve paid for editorial space

If anything, it shows that the person airing their opinions doesn’t actually know what they’re talking about.

You do you boo!

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