Media Relations & Earned Media

Effective media relations and earned media can be a force multiplier for your paid media schedule. Or, a lifesaver, if you really don’t have much of one.

Media relations and earned media mentions have always represented a way to leverage an otherwise insufficient media placement budget, or augment a reasonably adequate one.

Bill Gates famously insisted that if he was down to his last marketing dollar, he would spend it on public relations, by which he essentially meant generating earned media.

But he would likely agree that generating earned mentions is necessary but not sufficient.

After all, what is the point of tapping into the power of a 500 Kilowatt broadcast station if you haven’t given enough thought to what you want to say on their air?

We can help you there, too, because our first step is always determining the best strategy and tactics for your unique situation. You can read more about our process.

Our range of experience with media relations is broad.

  • We’ve helped the leading numismatic auction house set an all-time world record for the highest hammer price (more than $10 million).
  • We filled a 1,200 seat venue with young people for a classical music program featuring original compositions by Jonny Greenwood, of Radiohead, largely through a comprehensive earned media.
  • We brought the world to Selma, Alabama for the 30th Anniversary of the Edmund Pettus Bridge Crossing, honoring the late Rep. John Lewis and his fellow activists, drawing every major North American broadcast network, the BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio France International, and dozens of other global media outlets. Our firm handled all media relations for the landmark event.
  • When the single greatest collection of early American painting, sculpture, and antiques needed a strategic communication plan, including earned media support, they asked us to help.
  • We’ve provided media training to dozens of C-Suite officers and spokespersons.
  • And, naturally, we’ve written countless communication plans that included media relations and earned media elements as a central component.

We also have an extensive background in crisis communication.

From time to time new and existing clients have brought us their most pressing problems. Our job then becomes helping to mitigate the downside, accentuate the positive, and get beyond it.

Even so, we prefer fire prevention to fire fighting, if we have a choice.

That’s why we’ve done things like create a de novo All Hazards Crisis Communication Plan, so that a major medical system would be prepared in advance for everything from a wrong-site surgery to an EF5 tornado.*

Now, we’re ready to work for you.

Email us to get started.

*Our analysis included an assessment of the infrastructure damage that could be done to their three hospitals, behavioral health center, twenty-five physician practices, and three cities in their service area–all based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) data and guidance.