PR and Earned Media: How to Get Coverage Without Buying Ads
Understand paid, owned and earned media, how to find stories journalists want, a sample pitch email, and how to measure PR work.
Your company has just launched a new service. The marketing team has run ads and posted on the page, but an executive asks: why is no media outlet writing about us? You send a press release to a dozen news outlets, and a week later nobody has replied. This is very common, because PR does not start with sending news. It starts with finding a story the media and their readers genuinely want to know.
What PR and earned media are
PR (public relations) is the work of building and maintaining relationships between an organisation and the public. Earned media is exposure a brand gets without paying for it, such as news articles, media reviews, mentions on podcasts or customer word of mouth. To see the bigger picture, marketers often divide media into three types.
- Paid media: space you pay for, such as online ads or billboards.
- Owned media: channels the brand owns, such as its website, page or email list.
- Earned media: mentions by others that the brand does not control, which are often more credible because they do not come from the brand itself.
The key point is that earned media cannot be fully controlled. Journalists may tell the story from a different angle than you expect, so your information must be accurate and you must always be ready to answer questions.
What stories do journalists want?
Journalists do not work for brands. They work for readers. The question to ask is: what does this outlet's audience gain from this story? Angles that often get attention:
New data or findings
Such as a systematic customer survey, or usage data that reflects broad behaviour, as long as you can explain how the data was collected.
Human stories
Such as a customer whose life changed because of the product, an employee with an interesting path, or a founder who started from a real problem.
A view on what is already in the news
If you or your executives have real expertise, offering commentary on a topic people are already discussing is a good route.
A sample pitch email to a journalist
A good pitch is short, specific and shows you know what this journalist covers.
Dear ..., I follow your articles on young people working multiple jobs. Our team recently surveyed our freelance customers and found points about income planning that might be a useful follow-up angle for your readers. I have attached a summary of the results and how the data was collected. If you are interested, our executive would be happy to give an interview.
Notice the email starts with the journalist's work, not our product, and offers something they can use immediately.
Building long-term media relationships
- Keep your media list narrow: choose journalists and outlets that actually cover your field instead of sending to everyone.
- Reply fast and accurately: journalists work to deadlines. Being a reliable source matters more than one story.
- Help even without immediate benefit: introduce another expert if a topic is not your area.
- Do not pressure for coverage: chasing repeatedly or asking for edits after publication damages relationships.
When coverage is not what you expected
Sometimes an article contains errors or tells the story from an angle the brand dislikes. If it is a factual error, such as a product name or a number, contact the journalist politely with evidence. If it is the writer's own view, accept it and use it as a lesson for preparing information next time.
How to measure PR work
Do not only count articles. Check whether coverage appears in media your target audience reads, whether your key messages came across correctly, whether website visits or brand searches rose after publication, and whether there are links back to your site, which also helps SEO.
How to start
- Write your brand's key message in three sentences. See how in brand positioning.
- List 5 potentially newsworthy stories for this quarter.
- Build a list of 10 to 15 relevant outlets and journalists with each one's latest article.
- Write a personal pitch for each, not one message sent to everyone.
- Record every outcome, covered or not, to refine your angles next time.
Good PR depends on storytelling skills. Read more in storytelling in marketing, and to build your brand communication skills further, browse partner courses on Plants.work courses.