Earned Media

3 Tips for CPG Media Coverage

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There are lots of reasons to invest in CPG PR, but no matter the reason, PR is an investment, and you want your efforts to pay off, which is why you’re hiring a top-rated PR agency in the first place, right? Whether you’re trying to educate your customers about a distinctive ingredient, improve customer loyalty, invest in brand value or want a more straightforward approach to product inclusions in holiday gift guides, PR is not a set and forget it strategy, you can radically improve your outcomes with these three tips.

Maximize Your DTC or CPG PR

 

Multimedia for the Win

49% of journalists want pictures with the pitch. Owned media is an important tool for earned media. Having a variety of images of your CPG product images, both lifestyle, and product shots are helpful to busy journalists who don’t have time for multiple back and forth emails. Sometimes having the ideal lifestyle shot makes all the difference for busy editors who need a header shot for the story. In fact, journalists are 6X more likely to open pitches with multimedia, that’s a huge improvement when you consider that over half of journalists receive 50-100 pitches, PER DAY.

Images are the most common multimedia inclusions, but you can stand out with infographics, and social media posts too.

And data. Data is key. 39% of journalists want relevant data in the pitch. The funds for investigative polling are all but gone, if you conduct a consumer or industry poll and have fresh data, that’s news. And you can use that data in multiple ways, both for your own inside strategic planning and to secure media coverage.

Affiliate Links…For Journalists?

It’s not exactly news that media outlets are reshaping their revenue sources. Modern PR agencies understand the world is moving faster than ever and everyone in the media space is pressed for time and revenue.

For CPG or DTC products, having an affiliate program for media outlets increases the chances your product will get coverage in round-ups. Almost all media outlets are using affiliate links on their coverage, everyone from the Today Show to your local morning show. Being able to include an affiliate link in the coverage means your product may receive multiple pieces of coverage from one pitch.

 

Help Journalists Write Google-Friendly Reviews

When a journalist writes a review that Google loves, it’s good for you both. So why not do everything in your power to work with them? Google has very specific parameters around a quality product review, give journalists what they need and they’ll remember you next time.

Be Story Ready

When every company says it’s unique or revolutionary, it’s not eye-catching anymore. In fact, 100% of journalists roll their eyes when they see those words, because about .05% of the time, it’s true.

If you’re looking to leverage PR for things like features or newsjacking, be ready to help shape, inform and create the stories that will be attractive to the media. Even if you really DON’T have “any competitors,” you STILL need a story to get deeper more important coverage.

One PR professional said it best in an anonymous interview with Digiday: “It’s not enough to just be a disruptive DTC brand anymore. Brands need to figure out who they are, why they’re doing something so innovative and then work with us to tell that story.”

Your PR company needs to know that when they schedule a meeting with a journalist, you will respond in a timely manner. 1 in 4 journalists will block a publicist who fails to respond within the same day or a given deadline. If you’re not able to be available for journalists, say that upfront, to save face with journalists.

 

All statistics are from Cision State of Media Report 2022, unless otherwise noted. 

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Can Growth Marketing and Public Relations Work Together?

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Can growth marketing and public relations work together. Growth marketing is about customer acquisition and retention, often through paid media, with relentless iterations and deeply engaged knowledge of the consumer. Public relations is reputation management of a company’s image, often through earned media and deep understanding of broader cultural and media trends. So what do they have in common? On the surface, not much, but when you dig deeper into the tactics and the metrics, we can see where together growth marketing and public relations can work together successfully.

Suppose the business objective for a consumer product launch is to increase sales through decreasing competitors’ market share. In that case, a digitally savvy PR agency knows how to do competitive research of the entire digital landscape and media landscape and use that data to determine the opportunities to overtake a competitor, while a growth marketer is reviewing how the company attracts customers and retains customers. But where do growth marketing and public relations work together?

Data Driven KPIs

Today’s modern PR firms and PR campaigns should be tied to business goals and identified public relations metrics that support and funnel up into that goal.  While growth marketers are developing ads, PR agencies are developing ways to capture the target audience’s imagination. PR agencies may present a word-of-mouth activation or a targeted quality over-quantity earned media campaign that overlaps targeted audiences. A PR agency might also recommend content which can boost SEO and support brand values that interest and retain customers.  Just like a growth marketer, a modern PR agency is tracking metrics. What metrics might a PR agency track in the above scenario?

  • Mention Quality
  • Article Reach
  • Brand Placement in Article
  • Share of Voice
  • Domain Authority

All of the above PR metrics are measures of awareness and credibility. These metrics support top-of-funnel AND bottom-of-funnel customer journeys and can support growth marketing efforts with a keen eye on target audiences and messaging which supports growth marketing.

The Digital PR Toolkit

For growth marketers, the digital tool kit is primarily paid (but not exclusively); for growth marketing PR, the digital tool kit is primarily owned (but not solely). But there are a few areas where growth marketing and growth PR connect. One of those is SEO. For the growth marketer, SEO provides opportunities for retargeting and organic acquisition, growth marketing PR adds value to both. With a savvy eye on keywords and quality inbound links, PR supports growth marketing objectives to funnel into business objectives.

That’s not all; PR agencies working with media outlets to build revenue opportunities can help growth marketing with a high domain authority on inbound links as well as excellent reviews from credible media outlets, which send potential new customers searching for the product. These reviews could be in gift guides or hero reviews where the consumer product receives an in-depth study that meets Google’s product review update recommendations. Meanwhile, growth marketers will typically focus on reviews from influencers or existing customers. And a brand with positive customer reviews gives a journalist further confidence in a brand and a product.

Today, PR and growth marketing can use some of the same tools, they use them slightly differently:

  • Inbound Links
  • Owned Media
  • Credible Review Acquisition

Credibility: Where PR Fills The Gap

I often tell our clients PR creates the awareness and solidifies reputation; ads are the conversion driver – that’s how they work together, and they both work better. Why? It’s simple: earned media from credible media outlets is more trusted than paid ads. But few journalists look at it as their job to write conversion-focused marketing copy. The journalist’s job is traditionally to create the content that keeps you on the pages. From a longer tail and more strategic point of view – PR also builds brand credibility on the corporate level, trusted brands have faster aquisition and they have longer customer retention, meaning growth marketing is even more influential.

So when someone sees a great review of a product, and THEN they see the ad, they get the trigger to purchase the product, or maybe they sign up for a newsletter, or maybe the look for more reviews and do a Google search that lands them on another referral site. The pathways are endless, but they all come back to one thing: supporting the brand’s business goal.

I’m a fan of understanding and maximizing the media environment for our clients. The Avaans Media client is ambitious and goal driven, so understanding how our jobs support overall marketing strategies and business goals is essential. When we evaluate the landscape for our clients, we find a distinct point of view, and because our tools are different than growth marketers, we can glean insights and data that drive new insights. To be honest, I’m not concerned with being a purist about owned, earned, and paid. It’s the job of a digitally savvy PR agency to know what levers to pull when and how to shape campaigns that create success. That’s our job – and that’s why growth marketers and public relations can be best buddies.

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Consumer PR Trends for 2023

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Today’s digitally native consumer brand challengers need to know how consumers are changing in order for their  DTC brands to grow.  The media landscape is distributed and yet overwhelming. The average daily time spent with major media, including television, newspapers, magazines, radio, and digital formats, amounted to 12 hours and 30 minutes (Statistica). This means that consumer brands and their consumer pr agencies need to stay engaged with how consumers are discovering and purchasing products. When looking at consumer PR trends for 2023, several things stand out.

Consumers are More Socially Conscious Than Ever Before. 


Emerging consumer brands and emerging industries can not afford to ignore this trend, because it has been on overdrive since the pandemic. Whether the brand dives deep and engages in purpose-driven PR or takes a stand on social impact issues, consumers are voting with their wallets, and the up-and-coming generations have big expectations for businesses to contribute to improving society, not just the bottom line. 

  • 68% of consumers say brands celebrating what brings us together and emphasizing our common interest would strengthen the social fabric
  • 63% of consumers buy or advocate for brands based on beliefs and valued (Edelman)
  • 59% of consumers will pay more to purchase from a favored brand — a 4% increase since 2022 (Marigold)

Consumers Want To Find Products Through Trusted Sources

Let’s face it: everyone from your niece to your Mom is looking for credible information, and search is still one of the most critical places for consumers to find trusted information. Google knows this, and they’re doubling down on making sure their search results are from trusted sources. From consumer tech to CPG, consumer brands who want to grow must align with trusted sources.  It is no surprise that, over all, social media is not a trusted source for adults; however, they still use it as a discoverability tool. They then go search for more information.

  • 90% of searchers haven’t made their mind up about a brand before their search. (Zippia)
  • 68% of GenZ adults turn to social media for new at least once per week. (Morning Consult)
  • A considerable 82% of consumers trust print ads more when making a purchase decision. (Zippia)
  • Only 20% of GenZ named Instagram their favored platform. (The Atlantic) TikTok and SnapChat were #1 and #2, respectively.
  • 90% of U.S. consumers find targeted ads intrusive and annoying. (Zippia)
  • Online-only news sites are second only to social media as the most commonly used GenZ medium (Morning Consult)
  • The average person is now estimated to encounter between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day (lunio)

New Technologies Give Rise to Consumer PR Trends

The era of AI search is here – owned content needs to shift to long-tail search (Algolia) and there’s more. Voice search, most often done on mobile phones, is also on the rise. Consumer brands need to create content that reflects these new search methodologies and remember to take full control of their owned content in order to feed the algorithms.

  • 41% of US adults use voice search daily, higher in comparison to countries globally. (Google Mobile Voice Survey)
  • 25 to 49-year-olds use voice search more often than any other age group (PWC)

As you look at these trends, consider how you will use these ideas in your consumer PR strategies and with your consumer PR agency. You also might appreciate our report on how to make your earned product reviews more Google-friendly. As a consumer PR agency, we have a distinct approach that sets us apart. If you’d like to learn more, contact us today.

 

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5 Often Untapped Strategies of Early Adopter Marketing

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Ah, the early adopter. Their the people who grab on to things first, they start trends and they are influencers in their respective communities.

Whether you’re a startup, a movement or a personality, you need these early adopters. Marketing to early adopters can be slippery though, what they grab on to is almost entirely motivationally based. Toss out your traditional “Three P’s” of marketing if you want to capture this crowd, you’re going to need to think through what makes them tick.

Whether you’re building a product or starting a movement, keep your early adopters in mind. Strategies of early adopter marketing require a deep understanding of their motiviations.

Early Adopters Value Intellectual Stimulation

It doesn’t matter what your target market is, a certain segment of them are early adopters and early adopters like to be challenged and stimulated.  Puzzles and quizzes are intriguing to these people, but they get bored easily, so make sure the content matches the intelligence level.

Don’t mistake this to assume that every puzzle or quiz is intriguing to early adopters. They aren’t necessarily the “Buzzfeed” quiz takers. They like to learn and be challenged but they aren’t interested in dumbed down versions of anything. By the time something has caught mass adoption, early adopters have either “been there/done that” or are already deeply engaged in using the product.

Early Adopters Have High “FOMO.”

Because they value their role as early adopters, they never want to be “out of the loop” or miss something that’s particularly cool.

Tap into that “Fear of Missing Out” during the earliest stages. Give them ways to be cool to their community by letting them be the gateway to a broader audience and you’ll be tapping into their desires to be seen as an early adopter.

Google generally does this really well when it launches products. It does an initial invitation to known early adopters and gets everyone else clamoring to be part of it in the first phase and SEEN as an early adopter. Google definitely has marketing to early adopters down.

Early Adopters Are Attracted to Art, Emotion and Adventure

Perhaps more than any other target market, early adopters are pulled in by emotion, art and adventure.

This is one reason why Apple’s early emphasis on design caught on with early adopters, they loved the elegance of the product and interface, the art of the experience.

Remember, art, emotion and adventure can happen online and offline. This is a place where you can really get creative and have some fun. It’s also easy to identify these people based on where they go because events like TED and TEDX inherently draw early adopter personality types.

Because of this constant searching early adopters have, curiosity is a primary trigger for action. Tripping the curiosity trigger requires some thought because early adopters aren’t generally suckers for the usual mass-marketing techniques; they’re a little more sophisticated than that. You’re going to really have to think of something that genuinely makes them curious.

The “Why” Seriously Matters

Early adopters are very observant they generally see through tactics and need a reason to be inspired.  Your marketing message to early adopters needs to be centered around something inspiring.

Instead of focusing on product features, tap into the deep intellectual and emotional reservoir of early adopters and give some insight to them about why this product or movement matters. You’ll likely need to do some message testing here, but it will be worth it once you hit on the “why” that matters most.

Don’t Confuse Early Adopters for Extroverts

It’s easy to lump the two together, but research shows that messaging that targets extroverts actually repels early adopters. Early adopters like intrigue and creativity, they aren’t particularly attracted to social attention in a public way. This doesn’t mean they aren’t on social media, it just means that their triggers are different. They like to have their role as early adopters confirmed, but they also like to be the messenger of that delivery.

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4 Ways to Screw Up a Media Interview

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It doesn’t matter whether your interview is with the Wall Street Journal or a tiny vertical publication with a niche audience. You, the company representative, the thought leader, really do set the tone for the the interview. You control first impressions; you influence the tone and nature of the interview, and you set the stage for a fantastic interview or a deadly one. PR is like building a suit. There are 500 ways to screw it up. This post is part of a series on how to screw up PR. There are literally thousands of thing not to do in a media interview. So, let’s discuss 4 ways to screw up a media interview.

1. Be Unresponsive to the Interviewer’s Time

Journalists are under more pressure than ever today. The average journalist covers 4 beats, up 25% from last year, and 21% say layoffs or furloughs contribute to an increasing workload. More journalists are freelance, meaning they work for many publications and don’t get receive benefits, like paid time off, or even health insurance. From scheduling your time with a journalist to sending follow-up information like headshots, or company stats, journalists need you to do what you say you’ll do, and they need you to do it fast.

Many people think because so much content is digital, there are no deadlines. We indeed deal with PRINT deadlines less, but more than ever, there are deadlines. The pace of content creation that publishers and editors must keep up with necessitates deadlines.

So when you’re working with a journalist, it’s just good practice to be ultra helpful and responsive. Doing so might be the difference of getting in the story or not.

2. Treat the Press Like the Enemy

The press needs an angle, a story, something that people want to read. That’s what they really need. That every person in the press is out to get you, personally, is overblown. There are very specific circumstances where an investigative journalist has a job to do. If you’re in that situation, then you need crisis comm, not interviews. It’s unlikely that a journalist is approaching their conversation as a “gotcha.”

Now, that doesn’t mean you can drop your guard, it means you come to the table playing offense, not defense. Respect the interviewer’s time, give them a reason to be glad they showed up. Treat a media interview with the same level of professionalism you would treat an important meeting with an investor or a dream client, and you will probably be just fine.

A journalist is another human with a job to do. That’s all. Treat your interviewer like a human, and you will probably get the same professional courtesies back. Or you could screw up your media interview by treating them like the enemy and receive the same professional courtesies back.

3. Act Like the Journalist is Working for You

Let’s be clear: Aside from an accurate representation of your quotes and conversation, a journalist owes you nothing. They don’t owe you approval of the article; they don’t owe you a link to your website. They don’t owe you any. thing. They do not even owe you a retraction of an embarrassing statement. If you actually said it, you own it, don’t ask for a retraction or edit unless the quote is just wrong. This is not a paid placement, it’s not an ad. You do not have editorial control.

For example, during an occasion where we secured a magazine cover for the most prestigious cannabis industry magazine. The CEO went on a full-throated campaign to art direct the cover and the entire photo shoot, a photo shoot the magazine was paying for. He insisted on making the photographer come to his difficult-to-get-to home, for an outside location shoot even though outside shoots are harder on the photographer, and despite being told that studio shoots present better on magazine covers. The photo journalist was lovely and gracious and in touch with our team, but there was little we could do from a distance since the CEO declined to have a representative at the shoot.

When the publication came out, the cover disappointed the CEO. And I had to agree with him. It wasn’t the most flattering photo I’d ever seen. I’m sure there were better photos, but in a situation like this, the editor has full editorial control and I’m also sure the photojournalist had had enough with the prima donna he was throughout the entire process. So while the photojournalist was incredibly professional to our team and on-site, she felt completely disrespected and her work reflected her feelings.

When you’re working with photojournalists and journalists, be gracious. Take your cues from them. Make their jobs easier, not harder.

4. Be Unprepared

Remember the recommendation to treat your interview like you would a meeting with an investor? Would you go to an investor meeting unprepared? Of course not, so don’t screw up a media interview because you didn’t prepare.

Do your homework, because the journalist has. According to MuckRack’s State of Journalism, 77% of journalists say Twitter is their most valuable social platform, and LinkedIn is a distant second. Jump on Twitter and see what they’re talking about, and while you’re at it, take a sharp eye to your own Twitter and LinkedIn to make sure it’s your best self.

Read a few recent articles by the journalist and get a sense of their style and beats. As a bonus, you’ll also get a look at some of the other publications they write for and you may create interest in another angle for another publication.

What are your must airs? Decide ahead of time how you will answer the likely questions, and what’s most important for you to say what are your “must airs”? Also, decide in advance how you will handle the tough questions. Be purposeful, strategic, and planned.

Know your facts. You need to be able to cite the facts and the source, and you need to be confident when you do it. If you don’t have your facts straight, you will lose the confidence of the interviewer, or worse, the audience.

If your meeting is on Zoom, dress for the moment and make sure your lighting is on point. If you’ll be on TV, brush up on what does and doesn’t look good on TV.

A really great media interview is a skill. It takes practice. But you CAN have a successful interview if you simply give yourself the best chance by being empathetic to the journalist, respecting their job and being prepared.

 

If you’re looking to brush up your media skills or develop a strategic thought leadership program, take a look at our stand-alone thought leadership offering.

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