When it comes to cultivating a positive reputation for your brand, promoting your products, services or events and keeping your name top-of-mind in the media, success hinges on the right mix of public relations. That’s right, public relations or PR, isn’t as cut and dry as you may think. There are actually different types of PR – specifically, earned media and paid media – and each uses different strategies to help you achieve your goal. When should you use earned media vs paid media? R approach is to use both. Here’s how the mix benefits your brand.

Earned Media vs Paid Media

First, let’s define each. Earned media is likely what you typically think of when it comes to PR and it includes:

  • Mentions in the news as well as reviews
  • Positive comments from customers on social media
  • High organic rankings on search engines

This word-of-mouth PR is the best type, but it’s also the hardest to achieve. As the name says, you have to earn it through hard work on your end by creating exceptional customer experiences and on R end through expertise in social media strategy as well as content development plus the relationships we nurture and develop with media contacts.

Paid media is exactly as it sounds; paying to make your brand more visible through:

  • Social media advertising
  • Influencer marketing
  • Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising

This is becoming increasingly popular as a way to supplement earned media because you have more control and can target the specific audience(s) you want to get your brand in front of. But again, having the right expertise in these areas is crucial to keep you on point and on budget.

Achieving the Right Mix

Unfortunately, there’s no set formula that can tell you how much earned media vs paid media is necessary to achieve your goals. Both have their own pros and cons.

Earned Media Pros

  • Increased credibility
  • Heightened brand awareness
  • Expanded reach

Earned Media Cons

  • Considerable time and effort
  • Can be difficult to measure
  • Running the risk of negative publicity too

Paid Media Pros

  • Control over your message and targeting
  • Easy to measure
  • Quick results

Paid Media Cons

  • Can be costly
  • Lacks the credibility of earned media
  • Managing multiple platforms can be challenging

To achieve the right mix for your brand, you have to balance the pros and cons of each type of PR with your own resources, budget and goals.

R Team Can Help

R team has the PR expertise in both earned media and paid media, and experience in industries such as restaurant, hospitality, retail, health and wellness, business, non-profit to help you determine just the right mix for your brand. It all starts with a discovery call where we take the time to get to know you, your brand and your goals firsthand. From there we’ll create a proposal with a customized service outline with the earned media and paid media balance that gives you the greatest PR benefit.

Click HERE to schedule a FREE Discovery Call today!