What Is It, And How Should You Measure It?

Founder and CEO of JSA+Partners, a strategic communications firm working with consumer tech, digital media and gaming companies.

Earned media can be an incredibly powerful tool to establish trust and create brand awareness for companies of all sizes. But sometimes, communications and marketing professionals need further specification on how to define earned media—what it is, how it differs from paid and organic and, ultimately, how it’s earned.

Each company has its own set of rules, with definitions and measurements varying depending on what’s important to the bottom line. Unlike marketing spend, defining and measuring earned media is not very black and white. As the industry sorts out a standard, I’ll provide you with the framework to set your own definition and determine what works for your communications department.

Earned Vs. Organic Vs. Paid

My team defines earned media as anything we’ve touched. From interviews, we’ve pitched to inbound requests; if we’ve worked on it, we’ve earned it. There are a variety of ways this could manifest itself: We pitch a reporter on a gift for a holiday, and although they don’t respond, the product is included in future roundups. We receive an inquiry for an interview with an executive, and we prepare the spokesperson for the call, follow up with the reporter and check the story for factual accuracy. Or we secure an exclusive for a company’s announcement, and the story gets picked up by other publications. As any communications professional will tell you, there is much more than meets the eye to get a story published.

Organic media is any story written without the help of a PR professional or paid spend. These could range from a product inclusion in a holiday gift guide or a mention as a competitor of a company that’s predominantly featured in an article. While word-of-mouth is always welcome, it’s important to make sure that the story includes factual information about your company or product and uses the correct, most relevant assets. To turn an organic story into a future relationship, a smart PR professional will proactively reach out to the reporter to make the connection.

Unlike earned and organic media, communications professionals and marketers have control over paid opportunities. From satellite media tours to sponsored content, your company is paying to have your brand reach a certain audience with a precise message. I recommend these opportunities when the marketplace is crowded—during the holidays, for instance—or when you have a highly specific target audience you want to hone in on. Let’s say you distribute a press release on the wire. Which bucket does that coverage fit into? Since you’re paying for the release distribution and controlling the message, we categorize press release pick-up as paid media.

Measuring Earned Media

You secured the interview, and the article was published. So, how do you measure the quality of your work? There are many ways to measure earned media, from message pull-through to audience reach to social media mentions. You could even set up your back-end analytics to track how much site traffic comes from your news.

While there are many ways to cut the data, let’s start with the top of the article. Is your company mentioned in the headline or featured as a bullet? If the entire story is a deep dive into the inner workings of your company in a second-tier publication, this article will likely offer more value than a passing mention in a prominent publication and should be reflected as such in your reporting.

Regardless of how prominently your company is mentioned, it’s important to consider how your company is perceived. This is where message pull-through comes into play. Did the reporter use your key descriptions? Did your business or product messaging resonate with the journalist in a way that’s reflected in their article? Or are they calling it something completely different? Message pull-through is a key indicator of how your company is perceived publicly.

The next thing to look at is the publication. In most cases, the easiest number to pull is a publication’s distribution number, but that doesn’t tell the full story. Depending on your goals, sometimes a trade publication with a niche audience is worth more than an outlet with millions of impressions.

Creating Your Own Framework

Every company has different goals—whether you’re selling physical products or business subscriptions. So, how can you measure the impact of earned media? I’ll give you three examples.

1. Consumer product: Your bottom line is getting your product into the hands of as many people as possible. Therefore, you’re going to want to reach consumers. You should build your key performance indicators around product roundups, gift guides and innovation stories. Be sure to also track links to your direct-to-consumer website or retailers.

2. B2B SaaS: With the ultimate goal of earning new clients, you need to reach the publications those decision makers are reading. Your focus will likely be the quality of the story in trade publications rather than reaching the general public.

3. Tech startup: I find the goals to be twofold with tech startups—while you want to reach your customer, you also need to create thought leadership in business publications. So your measurement might be a combination of profiles on your founders, business stories on funding rounds and reviews of your product in trade publications.

Since there are so many nuances to earned media, it’s vital to understand how to define and measure the quality of your communications efforts instead of simply measuring the quantity.

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