I’ve been hearing a lot about needing strategy from potential clients lately. They are running a business or organization with many moving parts, and just getting promotions out the door is an accomplishment sometimes. What they crave is the structure of strategy, the peace of mind that all the Ts are crossed, Is are dotted and nothing is falling to the wayside. That is one of the reasons they work with us, because we bring that structure. Our “secret sauce” is the PESO model.
When we build a Marketing and PR strategy for our clients, we use the PESO model. This is a model for strategy developed by Gini Dietrich, author of Spin Sucks. She created it to empower PR professionals to be more and do more than the typical idea of public relations. It is also a fantastic approach to building strategy. The acronym stands for Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned Media. When all of these tactics are coordinated together, it provides a solid structure for marketing and public relations strategy.
P is for Paid
Paid media is often the first thing people think of when they want to promote an idea or service. And it definitely has a place in a robust strategic plan. But it doesn’t have to break the bank, and it really needs the support of its three companions.
Every year, we help promote the annual NY Ice Wine & Culinary Festival that takes place at Casa Larga Vineyards in February. We place ads with local radio stations to get the word out, and we reach people with Facebook ads. But people need to get information on the festival from the website (owned), and we talk about it on all social media channels for about four months leading up to the event (shared). And we also do a lot of PR activities to bring attention to it (earned).
E is for Earned
Earned media is another way of saying public relations. With PR efforts, the end results are placements – articles, interviews, blogs – that are not paid advertisements. Instead, they are third party endorsements by the news anchors, journalists, media personalities and trade publications that people know and trust. This publicity helps promote your organization and tell your story through different voices and angles, including ways you may not be able to talk about yourself.
We work with destinations across Upstate New York whose websites share factual details about their assets and attractions. While these descriptions are informative, an article or blog post can dig deep into first-hand encounters and emotions. For example, Mary Chong of Calculated Traveller shared her personal experience horseback riding that paints a vivid picture beyond what one might read in a brief website description.
S is for Shared
Shared platforms – social media – were long debated. Who “owns” and takes responsibility for a brand’s social channels? I love that this model essentially ends the tug-of-war between marketing, sales and PR. Social is its own thing – a channel and a way of reaching people in its own right. Managing social media requires a unique skillset and knowledge of the digital landscape.
Another reason I love that this is called Shared Media and doesn’t fall under owned media, is because these social platforms are separate entities. Your email provider cannot take away your customers’ emails. But a social media platform has the final say in how you reach your customers on their platform. This is a concept covered really well in the book Killing Marketing by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose.
O is for Owned
Owned Media are the places you can share your messages that you have full control over. It’s the channels that you own – your website, blog, email newsletters, mailing lists and phone numbers. It’s wherever you can reach your audience where you are in control of how and when and what the message is.
Each of these elements is an important pillar of marketing and PR strategy, but it’s only when they are planned in conjunction that you reap the full benefits of a strong strategy.
The term PESO model may not mean much to you, but if you create content for your business or manage any aspects of PR or marketing, you will already be utilising this model in some way.
Put simply, PESO takes in all important forms of media that are relevant to marketing and PR and combines them into a framework. Not only does the framework provide an overview of marketing tactics, but it also serves as a helpful planning tool and enables you to look for opportunities that arise from the areas that overlap. Developed by Gini Dietrich, it’s a great tool to use when planning for the big picture. It also helps put in context the media channels that you use and how they work together.
What is the PESO model?
Each letter represents a different form of media and the action it takes. It breaks down like this:
P is for paid
Perhaps the easiest to grasp, paid media refers to advertising that you pay for. Traditionally, this would have referred to TV, radio and print media ads, but the advent of social media has changed all that. Nowadays, a typical strategy takes in social media ads, advertorials, influencer marketing Google Ad campaigns, retargeting strategies and native ads (the kind that look natural on the platform where they appear), and any form of sponsored content. Email marketing for lead generation falls under here as well.
E is for earned
The mainstay of traditional PR, and an area we have a strong focus on here at AMBITIOUS, earned media refers to third party endorsements. This might include online reviews, blogger and influencer relations, media mentions in newspapers, magazines and websites, link building and broadcast interviews. It takes in all the coverage that you don’t pay for, but that you have to work hard to get – hence why it’s called ‘earned’.
S is for shared
Shared media is often referred to as social media too, but we believe there’s a wider context at play here. Yes, much of the sharing is done on social platforms, and this has become a key driver in the success of any PR strategy. However, a good PR plan will consider the partner networks that can be harnessed too. Partnerships, charity links and influencer engagement all play a part in ensuring those shares spread with meaning across social networking.
O is for owned
This means all the content that is owned by you, and that you have full control over. Owned media includes your company website, blogs, newsletters, reports, and white papers, and audio and video content. It doesn’t include social content. While it’s true that you produce the content that lives on your social channels, you don’t have ownership of it if that channel closes down. Your content marketing efforts sit here.
The framework is summarised in the diagram below:
What’s the best PESO model combination for a successful PR strategy?
There’s no doubt that earned and owned media live in the heartland of PR. Not only that, but skilled PR professionals will still spend considerable time and energy developing these tactics for their clients.
But to focus on these at the exclusion of the others is to miss the point.
The media landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade, as has the PR industry, and a good PR plan will recognise the value of considering the PESO framework as a whole. The four parts may not have equal importance in every campaign, but it’s likely they’ll play a part in some way.
Consider these questions:
- What is the objective of your campaign? How will each type of media help you to achieve this? It’s likely that one form will lead your activity and the others will overlap at different points.
- How much trust will each media type bring to your business or client?
- What is the cost of the activity? While it’s clear that paid media comes at a cost, what about other costs, such as getting assets created for owned media?
- What areas of overlap exist and how can these be fully utilised? For example, will investing in more owned content give you better opportunities to be shared and a higher chance of media coverage?
The PESO model in action
You’ve created some great content for your business or a client, but how can the PESO framework combine to give it the best chances of being noticed?
Perhaps you’ve interviewed a fascinating thought leader for a piece to be published on your company blog. It’s great content, but simply publishing it on your website won’t give it the attention it deserves.
Let’s look at the PESO model. When it comes to owned media, not only can you use your blog to publish it, but you can also feature it in your next newsletter, social media posts and on prominent promo spots around your website to link visitors to the blog post.
Opportunities to gain earned media may be less obvious, but there are often ways to get those important media mentions.
- Ask the interviewee to syndicate the blog post on their own blog, or to post it as an article on their LinkedIn page, mentioning that they were interviewed for your company and ideally linking back to your site.
- Scan the interview for newsworthy topics. Did the influencer comment on something relevant to your industry or to the general news agenda? If so, draft a press release with their quote and include a quote from your founder. Add some useful tips or insight and send it out to relevant titles.
- Email contacts in your industry network to ask if a link back to the blog can be featured in their upcoming newsletters.
Using the PESO model
Your opportunities for sharing the content across social media are wide and varied. At the very least, a snippet and link back to the blog can be posted on each social channel. Here are some more suggestions:
- Break the interview down into a series of short quotes and overlay text onto images for social posts.
- Short audio or video clips from the interview if it was recorded in this way.
- Takeaway advice and tips – particularly shareable on LinkedIn if it’s industry-related.
- Republish the entire post as a LinkedIn article by your CEO, tagging in the influencer and encouraging them to share too.
- ‘Behind the scenes’ images or videos work well as Stories on Instagram and Facebook.
Now it’s time to consider some paid opportunities. Has a Facebook post already gained some traction? If you can see it’s a popular topic, spend a little of your budget to boost the post and make it work harder for you.
Or maybe this topic has good search potential? If you’re already running a Google Ad strategy then consider adding the page to your campaign to boost its rankings and drive traffic through to your site.
Of course, this is just one example with a single piece of content. Applying the PESO framework to your bigger PR strategy will take some careful consideration and mapping, and at this level, the overlap between each strand will become more obvious.
Lead with the media that will deliver the strongest results for your campaign’s objective and integrate the other media types when they overlap in an effective and valuable way.
Your next steps
Contact us to understand how you can apply the PESO model to your PR and marketing work. Drop us a line [email protected].