Ep 65 - Should You Pay for PR Placement? The Truth About Paid vs Earned Media For Authentic Brands

Should you pay for PR placement, or is there a smarter way to build credibility and visibility in your business?

Emma had a client recently come to her with a story. A friend was about to spend $8,000 on a magazine feature, hoping that somehow, somewhere, the right person would see it and it would translate into business. No strategy, no distribution plan, just hope. And it got Emma thinking about how often entrepreneurs buy into paid PR for all the wrong reasons.

In this episode, Emma draws on her background in public relations to break down the real difference between paid placements and earned media, and why one of them tends to build trust in a way the other simply can't. She shares her honest bias (she has never paid for a placement herself), while also being clear that paid PR is not inherently a scam. It has a place, but only if it's built into a bigger system.

You'll walk away with a five-part decision framework to run every PR opportunity through before you spend a cent, whether that's a magazine feature, a paid podcast slot, or a sponsored editorial. You'll also learn why the feature itself is never the ROI, and why the distribution that happens afterwards is where your investment actually pays off.

You'll learn:

The real energetic and strategic difference between paid placement and earned media, and why each one serves a different purpose in your business

The five filters to run every paid opportunity through, covering audience alignment, outcome clarity, distribution, opportunity cost, and integrity

Why most entrepreneurs are buying PR for validation, certainty, or avoidance, and how to spot it in yourself before you spend

How to become genuinely press-worthy, including the simple Google Alerts hack Emma uses to land earned features on repeat

The exact assets you need before you pitch yourself anywhere, and why making a journalist's job easy is the most underrated PR strategy there is

Whether you're sitting on an opportunity you're not sure about, or you're ready to step into more visibility without outsourcing your credibility, this episode will give you the clarity to know exactly what to do next.

Emma's PR Pitch Cheat Sheet, with scripts and templates, is available free inside the Flow States Collective community: https://tinyurl.com/yse5bwdz

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Should you pay for PR placement? Welcome to the Flow Lane with me, Emma Mapon. This podcast is for the female entrepreneurs who want the both end big goals and a life that you can actually enjoy. We're talking sustainable scaling, working in flow, and creating a business that supports your energy, not transit. Let's dive in. Should you pay for PR placement? Now, paid PR can buy access, but it can't necessarily buy impact. And the question isn't necessarily should I pay? It's ultimately what outcome are you actually trying to create? So we're gonna dive into all of this today and ultimately what is the smartest way for you to create that outcome? So I am making this podcast today because I had a client come to me recently, and she had a friend who'd come to her and said, I'm gonna pay 8K to be in this featured in this magazine, and it's gonna be distributed, you know, all over Australia, and like hopefully someone in Sydney will pick it up and see me. And I'm I'm so excited. And she was, she, who's someone, my client, who's worked worked with me for a long time and now knows how my brain works, and she's you know, her brain's kind of working the same. She was like, Do you have a strategy behind that? I'm so proud of her for saying that. And she didn't. She just hoped that someone would see it and it would somehow translate into business for her. And she was willing to spend eight grand on that, maybe. So is that the best business decision? Probably no. Because paid placement isn't inherently a scam, but paying for validation is very expensive. And this is where you need to be super, super clear on where you sit on this. So, to give you some context, for those of you that don't know, my quote-unquote professional background was in public relations. I studied it at university, I've worked in the industry now for a very, very long time in a variety of different roles, in-house agencies, using it for my own business, working with my clients, consulting. I understand how the PR world works, I understand how the smoke and mirrors of it all works. I understand editorial credibility and the psychology of perception. So when someone comes to me and says, I want to pay for placement in this magazine, I understand the strategy and the play and the reasoning behind it. But I personally, in all of the magazine features and podcasts and, you know, some pretty big media features that I've had personally for myself, for my book, I've only ever had earned media. And call me old school, maybe it's just because of the XPR girly in me, but I feel like earned media just feels better because you earned it. You did something worth writing about. You did, you had a thought or something to contribute to a publication that was worth them actually writing about rather than paying for the place to be there. Now, it's not to say that you shouldn't pay to be there because there's a whole strategy behind that, but I kind of just wanted to preface it that that is definitely my bias. Because most people pay or buy into paid media placements for the wrong reasons. Now, I understand that media needs to make money. I understand a place for paid editorial. But for the average service provider who thinks that dropping 8K on a magazine feature is going to fundamentally shift their business, that is something that we need to talk about. So a magazine feature is not a business model. It's not even a whole marketing plan. The real question is, what are you buying and why? So I want you to be really honest with yourself because I'm sure you have considered this at some point in your business. Are you buying it for validation? Do you believe that you'll finally feel legit if you have this feature? Are you buying it for certainty? Do you feel like maybe this will fix your visibility problem if you just pay to be seen in more places? Are you buying it for a status that you actually want to be seen as premium? Or are you buying it for avoidance? You know, you don't want to actually do the uncomfortable work. Maybe you see it's uncomfortable of marketing and sales, and so it feels easier to just pay to be seen somewhere. So if you're buying PR just to feel safe, that is a very expensive nervous system strategy because it will not make you feel safe. And that placement will fade very quickly. As someone who has been featured in multiple magazines, who has contributed to magazines, it feels so exciting to see your name, your photos. I've had multiple page spreads and it feels like, oh my gosh, like wow, I've made it. And then that magazine issue moves to the next one and life moves on. So it doesn't actually fix the kind of underlying issue. So let's look at this kind of idea of paid placement versus earned media and the energetic and the strategic difference. So paid placement, obviously, as the name include indicates, you're paying to be included. So you actually control the narrative, more or less, and credibility can be kind of you know weaker if it's an obvious advertorial, like if it literally says this boat is sponsored, then the consumer knows, okay, well, this brand has paid to be there. Um, but it can also work as a brand asset. So if you're using it because you want social proof, you want the logo on your website that says as seen in Forbes, you want that authority, it can definitely help you generate that if that's your goal. Versus earned media, which is actually where you're chosen because you've genuinely like in some sort of reliable, relevant or relatable way, or have become newsworthy. So you have something of value to give to that publication, that outlet, and therefore that's why they're featuring you. And so this is often linked to then having a higher trust signal because if you've genuinely been placed there because of what you have to say, because of what you're contributing, whatever it is, people then trust you more. You're borrowing the trust of that audience. You're featured in women's health, you're borrowing the trust of the people that love, like, and trust that magazine. You're featured on somebody's podcast, they already trust that host, therefore, they're more likely to trust you. So it's an instant trust thing, as opposed to paying to be there, that there isn't there kind of as much. So often the earned media side of things is better for long-term relationships. This has definitely been the case for me. So many of the features that I've had personally that I've helped clients obtain, they then go on to have a relationship with that journalist. And journalists often have kind of like a little black book of, okay, we need a health expert on this topic. They'll have a list of people that they can refer back to. So if you've previously worked with them, you're gonna be on that list, which means you get more featured. So this is where, for example, you know, when I was doing a lot of work in the wellness space, I would so often get quoted as a wellness expert in other people's articles to help them build proof. And that wasn't necessarily a feature, but it was more mentions of my name and bigger features came from that. So that relationship is built through having an earned media opportunity. And then it also forces you, as a founder, as a business owner, to have an actual point of view, to have a story that is worth telling, to have crafted your story, to have understood your story and where it sits in the marketplace and how to actually pitch that so that it's of value to somebody. So I would say that, yeah, in my opinion, it's often, I think it's maybe the more preferable round, but it's not to say that the other way is wrong. We're going to explore both of those, obviously. So I think earned feels different because as I said before, someone else is actually staking their relationship on you. So their reputation on you rather. Someone else is staking their reputation on you by featuring you in that magazine or on that podcast. So to me, that feels like it kind of, you know, it means something more. So if you're making that decision, because say, for example, you are a product-based brand and you want to be able to have someone open your website and see, as featured in, all these reputable places. Sometimes it does make sense to pay to be there in order to borrow that trust to then convert customers into sales or to convert leads into sales. So there's a bit of a decision framework that you can kind of take yourself through here. So if you're considering paying, run it through this filter. So number one, audience alignment. My goodness, please make sure that you're not just doing it because you think it sounds cool. Actually make sure, is your buyer actually reading that publication or listening to that podcast? Is it the right geography? Is it the right stage? Is it the right uh are your actual dream clients listening to that? Or do you just love that magazine and think it would be cool to be featured there? Is that where your dream client is? Or is it just a fancy name? So prestige doesn't pay invoices, customers do. So go where your customers are. Number two, outcome clarity. What is the actual intended outcome of this placement, whether it's paid or whether it's earned? Because even if it's earned, you're still giving your time. You're still investing in that publication, in that piece of content coming out. So what is the intended outcome? Are you trying to get leads from this? Are you trying to form a partnership? Are you hoping it will lead to more speaking gigs? Are you trying to make yourself seem more credible because you want to be sitting at a more premium spot in your marketplace? If you actually can't name the outcome that you're trying to achieve, then it's just a vanity buy. It's just something that you're doing to feed your ego, as opposed to having a clear purpose within your business. So, number three is the distribution plan. And this is where most people fall down. So if you have paid, for example, to be there and you're just hoping that people see it, then that's literally dead on arrival. Like you are just hoping that someone, how many times have you opened a magazine, read an article, thought, my gosh, that's such an inspiring story? I really should buy that person's product. I really should look them up on Instagram and then literally turned the next page and done the same thing with the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and never actually taken action. Like, how many times have you gone back into that magazine and had a direct shift in your behavior? Directly looked that person up because you read about them. I would say probably not many times. So you actually need to then have a full repurposing plan to leverage any kind of PR, whether it's paid or earned. So obviously the first one being your email list. We were featured in this magazine, we were featured in this magazine, we were featured in here. Here's my latest article in this thing, whatever it is. You're further demonstrating to the people that are, you know, already on your list, hey, I'm also being recognized, I'm being trusted by this other publication. You can read about it here. Having it as a pinned post on your page so people see. Again, it's instant credibility. Wow, they were featured in a magazine, they must be someone. It's that perception that people have instantly. And then actually having your sales page and having that actually set out so that there's a credibility section. So when I click, and I love using the example of like skincare, for example, I'll see an ad. I think, wow, that's really speaking to me, but is this a scam? Because so much of the internet kind of feels like it is. And then you click through and you see their sales page, and it's very clear, oh, they've been featured in all these places. They must be legit, is kind of how the consumer brain sort of works. So making sure that you're actually then let like I cannot tell you how many people I work with that have been featured in incredible publications and podcasts, and it's mentioned nowhere on their website. There's no little bar that says as seen in. Like it's as simple as that, but it instantly builds no like and trust with people because they know like and trust those other places. And then maybe you're wanting to use that to then fuel other opportunities. So you're putting it inside like a podcast pitch, being able to show, hey, I've also been featured here. I do this all the time, and I've landed some really big opportunities by leveraging past ones, by saying, I wrote about this for this uh particular article. I was featured in this magazine speaking about this point. It makes the person instantly go, wow, if someone else has featured her, maybe I should too. And then maybe you're also using that for you know a speaker's deck. If you're on a podcast and you want to do more speaking, you might be using that to show, hey, I can clearly articulate and communicate a point. Here's an example. And then also social proof and reels. So this is where so many people fall off, is that they'll get an incredible feature and they'll maybe share an Instagram story of them flipping through the magazine and saying, here's what we got, yay, and that's it. Oh my gosh, please can you brag? Please can you stop trying to be humble? You either paid to be there or you got featured there, which is not not an everyday occurrence. Please shout about it loudly. Please make a reel about it. Please have it feature across multiple reels and use it as b-roll and have me seeing it constantly. I'm not gonna get sick of it. I'm just gonna be over here clapping you on. So the feature isn't the ROI. I need you to be very clear on that because as we just determined, people are flipping through and not necessarily taking action, but the distribution is. How you leverage it afterwards is where you actually make back your money. Because it often, in a you know, more traditional sense, say you're featured in a magazine, you're not often able to give someone a coupon code or go use this code to get this. You know, it's it doesn't work like that. It's we we pitch it or we leverage it as brand exposure, but brand exposure doesn't pay the bills. So you have to then be so strategic with how you're using that piece of media off the back end to build all this other stuff out. So PR isn't necessarily what happens in the publication, it's what happens after the publication. And you can continue to leverage that for years and years to come. So, number four is the opportunity cost. What, let's take it back to the original woman that wanted to spend 8K. What could 8K buy you in your business? A funnel, you know, ads to a proven offer, uh, a coherent um editor for maybe your your own thing, a VA support, a coach, a brand photographer to be able to do a full website refresh, VA and systems to help you to then be more visible. If the business foundations aren't, all this stuff isn't in place, PR is just gonna magnify that mess because you're gonna get the exposure, you're gonna have the eyeballs on you, and it's going to be for such a short amount of time. And if you have no way of capturing all of that, then that eight grand is much better spent setting all that other stuff up so that when you then want to invest in essentially a billboard, there's somewhere for people to go. It actually is a clear pathway for them to enter your world and ultimately become a customer for you to then see ROI on that decision. So if all that infrastructure isn't set up, go and invest your money there before you start stepping into PR and visibility in that way. And then the fifth part of the framework is ultimately integrity and transparency. So is it clear that it is a marketed slash sponsored slash avatorial style feature? Now, it's pretty murky out there. There are a lot of podcasts that charge people to be on the podcast and don't position it as a sponsored episode. And so it's great if you've paid to be there and looks like you didn't, but is that necessarily ethical? I would say maybe not. Um, and are you okay to know people to know that you paid? So if someone is actually saying, this is a sponsored episode by whatever the brand is, and I'm sitting here with the founder, da da da da da, are you okay with that? Because that's part of being ethical and transparent in business. And then does it actually match your values and the brand that you're building? So is it part of your long-term play and your positioning in the marketplace of where you're ultimately trying to get to? So I want you to actually think about all those things before you go and make the decision to pay for PR. Or on the flip side, just do something worth writing about. Like earned media comes from being specific, it comes from being a little bit provocative and actually in a grounded way having an opinion about something, not just ranting on the internet. It comes from being useful, it comes from being timely. Can you timely in a timely manner contribute to a current world event in some way? Do you have something that is data backed or story-led? Stop chasing platforms and start actually building the proof. One little hack I have for this is set up a simple Google alert. I know, so old school. Set up a simple Google alert for something in your industry. So, for example, when I was teaching meditation a lot, I would have the words meditation. And so anyone who is writing articles about that, I would get a Google review every day of a Google alert rather, of all the articles that had been written on that topic. I could then reach out to that journalist and say, Oh, I saw that you recently wrote about this and you referenced this study or whatever. Here's a new angle to that, or here's a next level we could go to that. Could we do an article about blah, blah, blah? You're able to then reach out in a timely way. If you notice that something is happening in your industry, say you're a nutritionist and you work specifically in weight loss, and there's some new weight loss drug that has entered the market and you have a clear opinion on it, and maybe you have some research or some client stories that you could share about that, that is really valuable information for a journalist to have. So you can reach out to them and say, hey, this is what's happening in the world today. I have, I have something for you that gives you value, that gives you leverage. That, in my opinion, is so much easier than figuring out should I or should I not invest all this money into something that potentially isn't going to give me a really clear ROI. So if you want press, become press worthy. It's kind of as simple as that. So create a media worthy point of view, build your assets. So actually have, you know, your bio, the topic angles, and the credible, the credibility markers. So this is something that I go through with my clients a lot, and we build out basically like a media kit. You don't need an agency per se to do your PR outreach for you. It's very simple. But you do need to be very clear and very easy to work with. Because there is nothing a busy journalist hates more than chasing you for your bio, your headshot, the link to your website. They're gonna go, oh my gosh, like we just didn't include that. The deadline went, sorry. So if you have all that on the front end, it can go, thank you so much for including me in this article, feature, whatever, here's everything you need. And there is beautiful high-res images. There is beautiful bio that clearly spells out everything you do. There's a long version and a short version. There is links that link back to your website, spelled out and hyperlinked, so that it is so easy for them to do their job. They're not having to guess, they're not having to try and Google you and figure out who you actually are. You're giving everything to them. It's super easy. And then you actually then having those three topic angles. So you can use that, whether you're pitching for speaking, for podcasting, rather than reaching out with just like a one-shot, hey, I want to talk about this. And they go, well, we just spoke about that, you know, we've done that six times this month, we're not interested. You go, hey, this is who I am, this is why I'm credible. And then these are the three things I can give comment on or contribute to in some way. They then go, you know what? Number three is for us. You're you're you're on. It's as simple as that. And then start where it's easiest. So podcasts are pretty easy. Like it's a high trust space, and there's a lot of niche audiences out there. And there's a lot of podcast hosts that do interview style only podcasts and are always looking for guests. You can then do guest articles in magazines or online publications or someone's you know blog. You can jump on panels, summits, or of course, you can, you know, pitch yourself for a keynote on a big stage. Pitch with relevance though. So why does this matter now? And here's the angle and who it serves. Not just, hi, I'm amazing and you should totally write about me. Thanks, bye. Because everybody's amazing. Everybody in your niche is just as amazing as you are on paper. So you have to make it super clear as to why you. Here is the angle that's going to work for that publication. Please do not just go to ChatGPT or AI and say, write me a pitch for this publication. I cannot tell you, even myself, as someone who has a podcast, I receive pictures every single day that are so clearly written by AI, they haven't listened to the show. They're referencing the name of an episode trying to make it actually sound relevant, and they're just pitching their whatever. No, take the time, like the little PR girly in me hack is take the time to go back and read or watch the last three episodes that that person has done and contribute meaningfully. Butter them up meaningfully. They know you're buttering them up, but if you're doing it in a way that's like, I listened to this episode, and when you spoke about da-da-da-da, this is what landed for me, and I like actually show that you engaged and listened to their content. I had someone very, very high profile pitch me yesterday. This is kind of a funny story, maybe embarrassing for them. I'm not gonna say who they are. They pitched me an incredible pitch, and they wanted me to write about them in Women's Health magazine. Now, I don't write for Women's Health magazine. I'm just featured in Women's Health magazine for myself. So somewhere along the line, they've got that confused and they've sent me this beautiful pitch as to why I should write about them. And I'm like, uh, I don't have any bylin articles in that magazine. I've only ever been featured in it. So why are you pitching me? And that just shows lack of research. That shows that they've probably just gone women's health magazine and my name's come up and they've found my Instagram and gone, that person done. We'll send this generic copy and paste pitch to her. Kind of funny. But great example. And it happens all the time. If you take the time to personalize that pitch, you are way more likely to get that person's attention in whether you're pitching podcasts, speaking, or media. So paid placement can make sense if that's your jam. And it can be strategic if it's hyper-aligned with your buyer. So not ego aligned. Not just because you want to see yourself on the cover of Forbes magazine because you think that's where your customer is. Where is your customer? Maybe they're reading some niche magazine that you've never even heard of, but they love it. Like do that research and be there. That would be an aligned strategy as opposed to just feeding your ego and kind of getting nowhere. If you have a proven offer and a clear conversion path. So if someone reads that magazine and finds you, it's super clear how they can work with you, how they can enter your world. It's not that they're having to piece together an Instagram account here and some other thing here and try and figure out who you are because they're not gonna do that. No matter how good what they read was, they will not. If you if it's not so simple for them to contact you, they're not going to. So it's also can be Useful if you're using it as a credibility asset over a long period of time. So again, you want that little thing as seen in vogue on your website. If it's actually bundled with distribution, you control. So your email list, ads, partnerships. You can run an ad saying we were recently featured in this magazine, da-da-da-da, to a cold audience. That's going to make them warmer a lot faster. Or if you're using it as a lever in a bigger campaign, so some sort of a launch or a speak you're speaking or a big rebrand, if it strategically fits into that, then maybe it's worth paying for. So paying for placement is only smart if it plugs into a system. So I want you to really, really be clear on that. If it plugs into a well-oiled machine, then yeah, you make the investment and bring people in. If it's not, maybe you need to think about setting everything else up first. So it's not that you never should pay, although I personally never have. It's that I don't want you to outsource your credibility. I don't want you to play small or think that you have to pay for a seat at the table when you probably know enough, have enough to share that you could earn it. And PR is, you know, actually one of the best strategies in business because people talk about you, people see you somewhere. That brand awareness is massive, but it's nothing if you can't actually distribute that attention, if you can't harness it and hold it. I see it all the time with people that get heaps of features and they're everywhere and they make no money because there's no clear pathway for them to actually do so. So earned media in its, in its, it's itself is a byproduct of clarity and consistency and contribution. So if you have those things, then you can be consistently pitching yourself for earned media, which is going to save you money and give you more trust, and ultimately, I think be a better part of your strategy than just risking the you know 10K investment and hoping that it that it pays off. So I just want you to think about this. Be so good that they can't ignore you, then make it easy for them to find you. So if you found this helpful and you want to dive into this a little bit more, inside of our free community, I have actually given away my little cheat sheet that lists out exactly how to picture yourself. I have scripts, I have templates, everything that you can use. I'm gonna pop the link to that below and you can grab it for free. I hope you found this helpful and I will be back again with you really soon. Thanks for tuning into the Flowlane. I'm Emma Maiden.