This week we want to focus on how PR and communications can make a real contribution to the bottom line. Perhaps the most useful framework for how we at OOKII Company think about communications is the PESO (paid, earned, shared, owned) model:
PR professionals who adopt the PESO model can have tremendous influence in terms of an organization’s overall communications strategy. If you’re stuck in “media-relations-only” mode, you will miss opportunities. When communications is approached with a synergistic mindset, what starts as a mere press release to generate industry news can become a mini campaign that reaches your target audience where they are consuming content, at a time to suit them and in manner that appeals to them.
“If you aren’t using the PESO model for your communications work, and measuring the meaningful metrics that help an organization grow, you will not have a job in 10 years.” Says Dietrich.
The PESO model is basically about the benefits of adopting an holistic approach, by combining each of the elements (paid, earned, shared, and owned) to achieve company goals and adapting how you use the different elements based on that goal. Building brand credibility clearly requires a different approach to that of filling the sales funnel.
- Paid media: This may include social media ads, sponsored posts and digital advertising. Also above-the-line activities such as direct mail, which still have a key role.
- Earned media: This is achieved through persuasion. You or more likely your PR agency will convince a journalist, blogger or other online ‘opinion leader’ to write about your organization and share your content.
- Shared media: Similar to earned but exclusively via social media platforms. This can be one of the most powerful elements for organizations when they leverage their followers’ peer review.
- Owned media: This is content that you create, manage and control yourself. A website or a company blog, but the important part is that it is content you create and control.
For example
An OOKII client produces an informative and well written whitepaper that will be of real interest to the client’s target audience. The whitepaper is published together with a blog post on the organization’s website. This is owned media.
A trackable link to the whitepaper is then shared across the organizations social media channels. People following those social channels engage with the content and hopefully they like it and more importantly, they share it among their friends and community. This is shared media.
A specialist blogger sees the online activity and decides to write a post on the topic, citing your organization and your white paper. This is earned media.
The organization creates and runs digital ads together with sponsored social media ads that take interested prospects through to the blog where the whitepaper is posted. This is paid media.
Keep it punchy!
What the PESO model highlights very clearly is that content is king. Content is at the heart of all our efforts.
Providing high quality content is vital if you want to engage in a meaningful way with your target audience, but people’s time to consume information is greatly reducing, so keeping it punchy and to-the-point has never been more important!
First published by Adrian G Stewart at OOKII.Company
Adrian G Stewart
