Earned Media vs Paid Media | Ep. 50

Ty Smith0:00

What is up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Crypto Marketing Show. I'm Ty Smith, with me is Liz. Today we are going into earned media versus paid media. So we are going to discuss the differences between PR issued through a newswire, PRs issued directly on a crypto website, and then organic coverage, the differences between them, the function each of them serves, and then we'll touch a little bit on the SEO-specific information for each of them. So let's first dive into PRs issued directly on crypto websites.

Ty Smith0:41

So you're probably familiar with it if you're involved in the marketing space in crypto. Pretty straightforward concept. You go to a crypto blog, let's say, or news source, you pay them X amount of money, and then they publish a press release on you. So it'll typically say press release on the top of the article. It's content that you wrote, not the company usually, and that's paid PR in the world of crypto.

Ty Smith1:10

As far as function that that serves and what differentiates that from the other items on our list, it's very quick because, again, it's paid. There's really not a whole lot of work that goes into it other than just paying and then issuing your release. You get a good name, ideally, that you're publishing with to talk about you, and it's great for if you have investors or community that wants to see constant kind of growth or people talking about your project. It's good for that because you can say, 'Look, we were featured on,' I don't know, CoinTelegraph or CoinDesk or whatever. That's, in a nutshell, paid PR in the realm of crypto. So that's number one.

Ty Smith1:53

Number two is PRs, press releases issued via wires. So things like Accesswire, PR Newswire. I mean, there's tons. What other ones are there right now? What are the big ones?

Liz2:07

Cision, but they're, I think they own PR Newswire, but it's a separate branch. Not totally sure how they're structured now, but they have crazy distribution from all the different places that they've acquired over the past couple years.

Ty Smith2:23

Yeah, Cision's massive in the world of PR.

Liz2:27

And PR Newswire, I believe, is the brand that they're on there, which is technically their wire.

Ty Smith2:33

But the way that works is typically it's either you pay per release or you pay for a subscription or you're going through an agency that's paying for a subscription. PR is written. It's usually pretty dry as far as the content goes. It's not really for mass audience reading. It's more typically for people that are journalists and things like that.

Liz2:53

Looking for coverage, yeah.

Ty Smith2:56

Exactly. It's kind of like a bone-dry version of like, 'Our company did this,' and we're announcing it to the world. That is one of the first steps in how a PR agency works. It's typically like that's the whole communication strategy goes into building out those press releases and then issuing them via the wire. The wires will then syndicate to sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands of websites across the internet.

Ty Smith3:26

And, again, it really serves as something that is really more for journalists to read and then decide if they want to cover it. And if so, it has a media contact in there. It has, hopefully, all the information that they need to write what they need or at least get started and then they can contact you. Again, there's media contact usually at the bottom of these PRs. And I mean, that's kind of how that works.

Liz3:56

Yeah, and you can just be distributed on really big websites, especially depending what kind of reach your platform has that you're utilizing. I mean, you can be on Yahoo News or Yahoo Finance, Forbes, Politico. It really depends on what you're also utilizing for your distribution and how you're categorizing that and where you're purchasing distribution for it. It can be national, global. You can pick certain places to really target. Depending, again, which platform you're utilizing, there's a wealth of opportunity to have various placements on very big-name publications. But it can show up in Google search, but it's not super effective if you're looking at building your SEO.

Ty Smith4:44

Yeah. I mean, in a minute, let's go into we'll do a breakdown of each of these three options and how they work as far as SEO because that is typically a big component of a PR strategy. But let's first go into organic coverage, which, again, like I was saying, issuing a PR wire is often the first step in organic coverage, but it's not the full picture. Organic coverage is what most people think of when they think of PR. They think like, 'Oh, this company's going to write about us. They're going to reach out. They're going to get the information they want, and they're going to somehow plug us into like a story they're working on or just they're going to think that what we're doing is significant enough to warrant coverage. We're not going to pay them to write about us.'

Liz5:27

It has to be newsworthy, essentially.

Ty Smith5:30

Yeah, it has to be, yeah, exactly. And then on top of that, you need typically an agency or a really talented communications person to convince the journalists or the media that it's newsworthy. As far as expenses go, this is something that sometimes people have difficulty wrapping their mind around. I have always found that organic because we obviously do a little bit of everything in the crypto world on the agency side of things. We do paid PR, we do issue wires, and we do organic coverage. Organic coverage, when you break it out, is typically the least expensive. Like, you'll pay a pretty big retainer typically to a PR agency, but on a per-publication basis and the reach of the publication, organic coverage tends to work out in the favor of the company on a cost basis.

Liz6:18

I would agree, especially for long-term efforts, too. Like, you're really building relationships with the different journalists that you're reaching out to, building trust with them that you have, not even just newsworthy stuff, but trustworthy, newsworthy stuff that they can then distribute to their audiences.

Ty Smith6:40

Yeah, it's very it's much more sustainable than the other two options. The other two options, you pay every single time.

Liz6:46

Yep.

Ty Smith6:47

And organic coverage can kind of compound on itself. When one journalist picks it up, other journalists tend to take note of that and then pay a little bit closer attention.

Liz6:54

Especially depending who breaks the story, for sure.

Ty Smith6:57

Yeah, but it will does typically take longer, too. Like, most PR agencies will take three to four weeks before you're seeing the first hit.

Liz7:03

Sometimes even three months. It truly depends. There's some people who have really incredible products that especially fit. PR is also very much about timing. You can work with a client to better craft certain stories or even create things. Like, I know a lot of people's strategy is create media first. And so they'll literally create products or aspects of or build out aspects of their business that are media-friendly and will be story-worthy.

Liz7:35

And that's a really big thing. It's not always just what do you have currently. It's, 'Hey, what can we build to better put this thing in front of the media?' And then also just good products always speak for themselves. It's not hard to craft a story around things that are relevant and timely and fit something that people like. There's certain places and things that don't grow until like years later, and it gets huge coverage just because of everything that's been built over time.

Ty Smith8:07

Yeah, exactly. Let's go into like the SEO implications of each of these three different strategies. PR wires, people will kind of discuss the SEO of PRs issued via wires in two different contexts. The first is they'll say, 'Oh, it doesn't really have much SEO juice because these links are published with no-follow links and because of that, you're really not going to get much of a hit.' That is true, in a sense, that it's not going to necessarily improve like the domain authority of your website just by issuing it.

Ty Smith8:39

But SEO, again, is much more than just having a strong domain profile. It's when people type in your website, they see the content you want them to see. These PRs issued via the wires get distributed to hundreds of websites, sometimes thousands of websites, to the point where when someone types in your brand, they will see the PRs in the absence of anything else.

Liz9:00

Exactly. And it's just another touchpoint. A lot of people, again, all of this is for building trust with both your audience and the media. And so it adds an extra layer of trust. Even if it's something that's paid for on Yahoo Finance, a lot of people don't even realize that. And it's still some place where your name is backed up by a major publication.

Ty Smith9:36

Yeah, it's funny. I always forget that because I look at ads all day and marketing all day, and I forget that some people really are like ad-blind. They don't realize if they're looking at an ad.

Liz9:45

Oh, yeah. We're going to have to do a whole other episode on that.

Ty Smith9:50

Yeah. Yeah, it's true because I'm I mean, I'm an SEO guy. I love SEO, and then I always forget that like you can just pay also to rank for certain keywords. And like in my mind, it's like, 'Oh, well, that's not as cool of a goal because it's easier and whatever.' And people will realize it's an ad, and I forget some people really just don't even realize it's an ad.

Liz10:11

Nope.

Ty Smith10:12

All right, cool. So SEO in the context of PRs issued on websites, like paid placements on websites. Most of the time, most websites, at least in the industry that we're in, which is crypto, will include like two to four backlinks in their paid releases. So that does have some link juice that gets passed from a website onto your site. It's only one place where the content exists rather than being syndicated to thousands of websites, but it will boost your domain authority with enough of those things.

Ty Smith10:47

And then organic coverage. So organic coverage is like a little bit of like a wildcard when it comes to SEO because nothing's guaranteed in the world of organic coverage. It's, at the end of the day, up to your publicist to pitch and then get you coverage. But typically when you do get coverage via like an earned media team, it is do-follow backlinks, and it is from very authoritative websites. So it could have significant SEO implications if done right. So there is there's like a there's like a range of of SEO implications to these different PR strategies.

Liz11:24

Completely. Having a referral program, too, like if your product fits for that, a lot of publications look for referral programs to work with because you have to think about the nitty-gritty here. When you're working with media, when you're working with journalists, when you're working with publications, you have to really think about what are they after, too. Like, they're after clicks.

Liz11:55

They need to bring in clicks. They need to like also sell their own advertising and stuff because these publications are, at the end of the day, a business. And so I have noticed, too, a lot of people really gravitate toward places with referral programs if you have certain products that fit that need because then they can get like a little bit of a kickback from that as well, and it's not like murky, black-hat SEO. It's something that's that's still kosher to do, 100%.

Liz12:23

So think about their needs as well because also these publications have needs, too. A lot of them need money. It's like historically known that publications are like kind of a dying breed, and so anything that you can do to kind of be like, 'Hey, this is something that can really help boost you as well,' there's always a little bit of like a let's scratch each other's back situation.

Ty Smith12:51

Anything that, obviously on the earned media side of things, a lot of it is taking dry information and kind of massaging it in a way that journalists like. Is there any tips that you can give us on like what what type of content journalists typically look for and how companies can put their best foot forward and get journalistic coverage?

Liz13:12

Absolutely. As always, know your audience. Like, if you're going to have just a gigantic list of journalists that you're spamming stuff to, that is the biggest way to get yourself blacklisted. Don't just contact random people. It's not going to work out for you. Really take the time to research as many people on a list as possible, build a really cohesive list of people to pitch to that you know are already interested in that topic and have covered that topic before because journalists put a ton of time into their job. They spend tons of time writing, researching.

Liz13:52

And when you go and read their article and say, 'Hey, like, this could be a great fit for something that I represent,' that goes a long, long way. A lot of people don't read their work. They're just like, 'Here, cover this thing. You've showed up in a bulk search for this.' And that's just not going to be the way to grab someone's attention.

Liz14:19

It's really the foundational level of building relationships, building trust, and getting to know someone and saying, 'Hey, like, you're a great writer. I think that this would be a really good fit for anything you might be working on. I would love to talk more.' And I think that approach is really undervalued. I think a lot of people just seek quantity over quality there.

Liz14:40

But if you're really like fostering a relationship with people who are big journalists in the game, a lot of people don't have singular homes anymore. A lot of journalists are freelancers now. So you'll get someone who writes for three different publications. And if you have a really good relationship that you're genuinely building, it's not just one hit then. It could be three, four, whatever.

Liz15:08

And they're going to move on and write somewhere else because a lot of these places also are owned by the same six gigantic companies. And so you have a lot of overlap in that space where you can utilize that. You both can utilize that to your advantage. So I really think that building a foundational relationship with people where you can give them trustworthy news and information is honestly going to be the biggest thing that gets you the longest way.

Ty Smith15:37

Yeah, the two main ways of doing it are either going and having someone on your team create those relationships, which is slow but impactful and much more sustainable, or if you are in a rush and you want to kind of cut through the noise quickly and make sure that you can get coverage from top companies, going through an agency like us or any of our competitors.

Liz16:00

Yeah, and it's important to also be honest with like what you're releasing. Like, a lot of people are like, 'Oh, well, like, every journalist will cover this,' when in reality, like, there's very few things that every journalist will cover. Making sure that you really do have well-set expectations internally, too, with what's going to receive potentially what level of coverage, that's important as well.

Liz16:29

Like, you're not going to get front-page New York Times coverage for a lot of your everyday projects. Like, that's something that's special that has to be really massaged. There's stories that are worked on for months that hit like New York Times and stuff.

Liz16:47

But, again, also that timing, like it's up to your PR person to know with organic how to hit that timing, how to stay on top of trends, like know what's relevant and act really quickly because there's a lot of things that can then be like just thrown into the conversation that might be relevant, whether it's like your leadership team having a quote on some big news that happened. It doesn't also always have to be product-based. There's like leadership PRs that can go out about whoever is at your company and might be a bigger name. There's so many different ways to approach it. That might also be its own podcast.

Ty Smith17:26

Yeah, no, I think I think it is. I like that. We should put a note in that for the next one. Let's do a quick breakdown before we wrap this up on these three different options as far as speed goes, as far as cost goes, and as far as SEO goes. So speed. Issuing a PR wire is super fast. So is issuing a paid release on a site. So those as far as speed goes are super fast. You can get things done within a matter of days typically.

Liz17:56

Yeah, for the wires in crypto, though, definitely be a little mindful of just making sure you're getting it done at least a week or two ahead of time. With crypto, there is still censorship, and with all of like, the Litecoin Walmart thing, that was huge. There's a lot of wires now that are like, 'We need to make sure on our end that that doesn't happen anymore.'

Liz18:21

And so there are certain permissions that have to take place before you can issue a wire, especially on these larger distributions, because they need to make sure that they are protected as well and aren't, reamed out or like financially reamed out for allowing fake wires or scam wires or fraudulent wires to hit their distribution list.

Ty Smith18:46

Yeah, good point. So maybe I'll change my answer from couple days to about a week for things like that. Organic coverage is the slowest. I said three to four weeks, you said three months. It ranges all over the place depending on the agency and the relationships, and even the same agency will get different lead times depending on the newsworthiness of coverage. So speed, organic coverage is going to be the slowest but most sustainable.

Ty Smith19:10

As far as costs go, PR wires and press releases issued directly on sites, relatively inexpensive. You'll pay per issuance of the release.

Liz19:22

Can be around like 100, 200 to like a grand, two grand. It really depends on how many words, are you using logos, images, what's your distribution level. Typically, I see the, a good sweet spot is like 800 to a grand. You get solid distribution, you can include more words, you can have typically like a logo or some kind of image. But if you do want to pay those lower price points, you can do that. You just may not get a wider distribution or as many options, yeah.

Ty Smith19:58

And then as far as organic coverage goes, more expensive initially because you're paying an agency a retainer or you're paying someone on your team to go and actually build relationships and you're paying that salary. So a little bit more expensive upfront as far as like you won't see the results immediately in week one, but when you break it out and look over a longer timeline, it's, in my experience, significantly less expensive.

Liz20:21

Yeah, I mean, it just, you can get one hit. Like, you can get one hit down the road that covers all those costs. Like, that's the kind of, I don't want to say gamble, but, you have to make sure the person you're working with is also the right person for your team, etc.

Liz20:53

But like that one hit, what if it is that New York Times cover? What if it is something really high in the Alexa ranking that you're going to get insane value out of because that will amplify your website's authority, it puts you in front of huge audiences, and you can start to measure that impact. And so that can be exponentially huge after a certain period of time.

Ty Smith21:50

Yeah. And then the last point, SEO. So PRs issued on the wire, they're not going to improve your domain authority most likely unless it gets picked up somewhere else, but it will show up in search results, so there is some some value there. A PR on a crypto website or any industry website typically comes with some do-follow backlinks, which does have some SEO juice to it. And then organic coverage could be huge, especially if you're getting covered by a lot of organizations and authoritative organizations. So they all have somewhat of a of a SEO bonus, but different levels and different styles.

Ty Smith22:27

I think that's all I got. Why don't we wrap this one up? If you're not already subscribed to us on YouTube, make sure you subscribe, hit the like button, all that good stuff, leave a comment, and then we will catch you guys on the next one. Bye.

Liz22:40

Bye.