???? Episode 105 of Yes, and Marketing
Machines may be taking over, but earning a link from a trusted publisher still does more for establishing your brandâs expertise and authority than ranking on page one of Google. (And personally, we think thatâs a good thing.)
The biggest challenge with earned media, though, is that it requires truly interesting content.
On this episode of Yes, and Marketing, we learn what makes interesting, newsworthy content (as well as the inner workings of earned media, syndication, and public relations) from Amanda Milligan. Amanda is Head of Marketing at Stacker, a company producing data-driven journalism for the world’s top publishers. In her current role and as a former journalist, she understands exactly what it takes to build stories that publications want to share.
Listen to the full interview above or read on for our highlights from the conversation. You can also view excerpts from all our episodes on our show page.
???? Who is Amanda Milligan?
Name: Amanda Milligan
What she does: Head of Marketing at Stacker.
Find Amanda on the web: Stacker | Stacker Studio | LinkedIn | Twitter
Get smart: âEarned media leverages the authority of the other people who are talking about you.”
???? Top Takeaway
Earned media 101
âEarned media is basically any coverage about your brand that you do not pay for,â explains Amanda. Unlike paid media, earning media requires you to create content that someone elseâoften a publisherâfinds valuable enough to link to.
When it comes to establishing your brandâs authority with your audience, thereâs nothing better than earned media. It tells readers you have actual insight on topics that matter to them, and it positions your brand as a trusted source. âIf people are deciding between you and a competitor, but they’ve seen the reports that you’ve put out and you really helped them, they’re going to go with you,â Amanda says.
The one challenge with earned media? Itâs hard to do.
In order for publications to consider content valuable enough to share with their audience, it has to be interesting and newsworthy.
Earned media, Amanda explains, âis not saying this is why our product or service is amazing. It’s saying we care about the same topics that you do, and we’re investing the time and effort into showing that and giving you something that’s actually going to make your life easier.â
In addition to your content, however, earning media is often about relationships. Thatâs where Stacker comes in:
âThe company started in 2017 as strictly a newswire,â she says.
Their mission was to provide content to news publications, and they built a network of publishers that learned they could trust the quality of Stackerâs stories. It was only later that Stacker, through its Stacker Studio arm, began working with brands to produce stories. By maintaining their contentâs high quality, however, they were able also to maintain that trust with publishers that they worked so hard to build.
âWe establish these guidelines internally of, we’re going to write the story that we think is going to be good,â she says. âWe’re always going to have final editorial say.â
The lesson? There are no shortcuts to earned media. It requires long-term investmentâboth in the quality of your content and in your relationshipsâbut it offers an unparalleled competitive advantage to the brands who get it right.
???? Episode Highlights
Read verbatim excerpts from our interview with Amanda Milligan.
Donât forget ToFu content
âPeople tend to build authority at the bottom of the funnel really well. They know how important it is. They build their case studies or testimonials, they know they have to do that in order to convert and get clients or customers, but they don’t really focus on the top of the funnel, and they’re not spending as much time cultivating authority for a wider audience.â
Earned media requires newsworthy content
âNo matter where you’re at in the funnelâif you’re talking about a new product, or you’re talking about a study you put together that’s more top of the funnelâit has to be newsworthy or earned media is otherwise just not going to happen. You might as well go to paid, if you just need that message out there and you need it exactly the way you want it.â
Donât skip the ideation phase
âAt Stacker, we have a newsroom of people who work on the ideas. That’s the part that people tend to skip: They don’t think hard enough about the idea itself and put in their due diligence there.â
What to do *after* your bottom of funnel is ready to go
âYouâre not talking about your brand anymore, when you get to the top of the funnel. Instead, you’re offering different levels of value to whatâs still your target audience, but probably a broader audience in your industry, and deciding how can you best do that? What topics can you talk about? Can you use internal data or external data to tell a new story, to do a report? We see a lot of people doing annual reports that are really useful to those in their industry.
Itâs that realm where you’re providing expertise that’s not saying, ‘This is why our product or service is amazing.’ It’s saying we care about the same topics that you do, and we’re investing the time and effort into showing that and giving you something that’s actually going to make your life easier.â
Earned media is hard, but worth it
âThat’s the theme of this episode: It’s not going to be easy, but that’s why the people who invest in it are able to compete. And it has long-lasting benefits. This isn’t like, âOkay, I paid for this thing once,â or, âI bought these sketchy links that gave me a boost and now it’s over.â You’re really investing in it. It drips over into your brand.â
Why earned media is so effective
âEarned media leverages the authority of the other people who are talking about you.Â
âŚIf you’re paying for it, you didn’t have to meet any qualifications, right? If I see a paid piece, itâs like yeah, they paid for it. It might still be useful and great, but you’re not getting that immediate signal of âOh, like so-and-so publicationââ
If Newsweek talked about your brand and it wasn’t paid for, that sends a very different signal of you being trusted. It’s basically like an inferred vetting. It helps your reputation, and that’s a really, really valuable thing about earned compared to other approaches.â
What PR and SEO have in common
â[PR] is similar to SEO. You donât just check a box for SEO. I mean, you can do an audit and do the technical side and check a box, but you still need to check up on that at some point. And other SEO efforts are ongoingâyou canât take a month and really buckle down on SEO and then forget about it.Â
Itâs a philosophy, really. When you decide that thatâs the marketing strategy, youâve gotta be ready to go for a long time because youâre going to see a lot of growth, but it takes a lot of investment.â
Look beyond your competition
âMake sure you’re broadening your sources of inspiration because I think it’s really easy to do the competitive audit and just look in your spaceâand you should do thatâbut when you’re able to see other verticals and what they’re doing and what’s interesting to their audiences, you can be pulling really interesting insights, methodologies, the data visualization styles⌠All of that stuff can be applied to your industry.â
????ď¸ Amanda Milligan Quotes
âPeople really care about content that directly relates to them. They want to be able to see themselves in the content that you’re creating.â
âIf you just need that message out there and you need it exactly the way you want it, you gotta pay for it that way. Otherwise, earned organic type stuffâyou have to deserve it.â
âYou can earn great media and live in the top of the funnel, but you have to have the bottom of the funnel ready to go.â
âIf people are deciding between you and a competitor, but they’ve seen the reports that you’ve put out and you really helped them, they’re going to go with you.â
âIncreasing your brandâs authority uplifts everything else youâre doing.â
âââYou still need to create interesting, newsworthy, data-driven stuff. That’s always going to be the case, but how you distribute it is getting harder and harder.â
âAuthority and domain rating matterâyou just have to make sure you’re using them appropriately.â
???? Learn More
Into comic books? Try the Saga series, which Amanda describes as “pretty dark, but fantastic.” (At least one member of our team agrees.)
Check out MozCon, where Amanda will be speaking live this July.Â
For “engaging data journalism,” Amanda recommends The Pudding.
And finally, a few other marketers and communities that Amanda follows:Â
- Aleyda Solis
- Dan Shure
- Women in Tech SEO
- Traffic Think Tank (Read our interview with TTT co-founder Matthew Howells-Barby to learn the story behind the community.)