Apologies if we’ve been particularly outspoken recently. It has nothing to do with the major award our team won in Barcelona last week, and instead stems from the fact we know we are right when we say PR is dying.
Panic not, though, our sector is not going anywhere, but rather evolving to suit the new media landscape and overcome obstacles brands are now presented with. Integration is the operative word when it comes to solutions, something we touched upon with the aforementioned piece on the end of PR.
Before that, we blogged to advise readers on the best approach to driving leads and sales using PR measurement metrics, a post that may have introduced some to what we call PESO. Given we have started we thought it was time for a follow up piece going into more detail about why this approach to promoting products and services in the media is now seen as most favourable.
Forget Latin American currencies
It might be holiday season but cast tropical climates and adventurous trips from your mind, because PESO has nothing to do with cash-money in places like Mexico, Chile and Colombia.
Instead the four letter stand for…
Paid
Advertisements, sponsored content
Earned
Editorial coverage
Shared
Unpaid social media
Owned
Brand-owned channels, such as in house blogs like ours
These are all different types of media that a brand could use to promote itself to the public, offering a far broader set of PR measurement metrics to help guide future efforts. Individually, each arm of the quartet above is extremely powerful, but only when campaigns take into consideration— and try to integrate— all four do we start to see really impressive results.
Don’t (just) take our word for it
Gini Dietrich is the founder of professional development community Spin Sucks, CEO of Chicago digital marketing agency Arment Dietrich, and an advocate of PESO.
“For far too long, PR has been synonymous with [earned] media relations when, in fact, that is just one tactic in our wide and ever-evolving toolbox. The PESO model allows communicators to own each of the four media types – and to start properly communicating from a prospective customer’s very first touch,” she is quoted as saying.
“While the industry, as a whole, has adopted a ‘sit back and wait’ mentality when it comes to everything but earned media, the communicators who integrate the other three media types will win. The PESO model is the smartest way to activate a public relations campaign today.”
The importance of using quality and comprehensive PR measurement metrics
As per our post, ‘Without the right PR measurement tools, it’s just dark matter‘, it’s impossible to overstate how vital it is to perfect processes for measurement and evaluation. This means ensuring you have a good overview of how all media can and is being used to further brand presence.
By ignoring this requirement you place yourself at a huge disadvantage compared with companies— and their integrated agencies — that have embraced the big data age, those that assess feedback and results across a range of platforms and channels in order to develop ever more impressive campaigns in the future.
