The PESO Model™ has taken the industry by storm in the past few years, but it wasn’t so long ago that it was simply a process we were testing in my agency. One of the biggest challenges we had as a PR firm was that there were peaks and valleys in the work we did for clients.
During a new product launch or a big campaign, there would be lots of stories written, podcasts published, and videos viewed. But once that was over, there was a valley of nothingness.
It’s how the industry works. After all, you can’t be in The New York Times every day. But when clients are paying you to tell their story, they don’t love hearing that no one cares because you just saturated all of the media outlets with your latest campaign.
To figure out how to balance out the peaks and valleys and have consistency in the work we were doing, we introduced some other tactics. At the time, it was blogging, Twitter, and Facebook. But there was something to be said for creating content you could then post to social media to drive people back to your website, including journalists.
After many iterations, the PESO Model™ was born, and it was introduced to the PR industry as a new way of integrating the work we do to provide consistent results.
What Is the PESO Model™?
The PESO Model™ takes the four media types—paid, earned, shared, and owned—and merges them together.
- Paid Media. Paid media, in this case, doesn’t refer to big, fancy commercials and highly creative print ads. On the contrary, paid media for a communications program is social media advertising, sponsored content, and email marketing. Think Facebook ads, LinkedIn video ads, and Outbrain for content amplification.
- Earned Media. Earned media is what you know as either publicity or media relations. It’s getting your name in print. Having a newspaper or trade publication write about you. Appearing on the noon news to talk about your product. It’s what the PR industry is typically known for because it’s one of the few tangible things we do. The ancillary benefit of earned media in today’s digital world is search engine optimization.
- Shared Media. Shared media is what you know as social media. It’s evolving as well and continues to build beyond just marketing or customer service teams using it. Organizations have begun to use it as their main source of communications internally and externally. This is curated content, Facebook Live, and Instagram Stories. It’s putting the social back in social media by creating engagement and community.
- Owned Media. Owned media is what you know as content. It is something you own, and it lives on your website or blog. You control the messaging and tell the story in a way you want it told. This is not hosting your content on Medium or a LinkedIn newsletter. It’s owning your content and the platform it lives on. You can use those platforms as outlets, but the reason it’s called “owned” is because you own it and are not renting it to anyone.
When you integrate the four media types, you may find you also have influencer engagement, partnerships, and incentive programs that extend beyond your internal walls.
The Advantage of Integrating All Four Media Types
And when the PESO model is working at its best, it can help you establish authority. Authority leads to thought leadership. Thought leadership leads to credibility and expertise. Others see you as an expert … even your competitors. And Google links to you on the first page of results because it also sees you as an expert.
If you have enough authority that both Google and your competitors see you as the expert, you win the human and the SEO game.
This is the golden ticket.
The golden ticket notwithstanding, there are other advantages to using an integrated PESO Model™ communications program, such as:
- How brand awareness and reputation affect the overall organization’s goals;
- How it generates and nurtures leads as well as any type of advertising or sales;
- How it provides tools for customer service; and
- How to measure the success back to revenue.
As you think about your own PESO Model™ communications program, start with owned media. Create the most compelling content you can about your organization, products, services, team, and customers. Then use shared media to reach existing audiences, earned media to rubberstamp it, and paid media to amplify it.
When you do that, you’ll organically create trust, authority, and credibility that is long-lasting and hard for competitors to beat.
This post is part of PR agency, Durée & Company’s ongoing Guest Blog series, The #DynamoDigest, where we have tapped select authors, journalists and Influencers whose work we admire and respect. In this series, top tips and best practices are shared across a variety of topics impacting the public relations industry today.
By: Gini Dietrich, the founder, CEO, and author of Spin Sucks, host of the Spin Sucks podcast, and author of Spin Sucks (the book). She is the creator of the PESO Model and has crafted a certification for it in partnership with Syracuse University. She has run and grown an agency for the past 15 years. She is co-author of Marketing in the Round, co-host of Inside PR, and co-host of The Agency Leadership podcast.
About Durée & Company
Founded in 1999, Durée & Company is a full-service, well-respected and highly creative public relations and marketing agency serving a diverse client base of local, national and international consumer brands, landmark industries, business leaders and philanthropists from its offices in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Aspen, Colorado. Practice areas include nonprofit, hospitality, business, lifestyle, health and wellness, legal, real estate, yacht and marine as well as cannabis, psychedelics, and other emerging industries. Durée & Company is a member of some of the nation’s most elite professional organizations including PR Boutiques International™ (PRBI), The Florida Hemp Council, The Cannabis Marketing Association and is a corporate partner of Cannabis LAB. Join the social conversation and follow Durée & Company on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn at @DureeCoPR. To learn more, call 954-723-9350; go to dureeandcompany.com; cannabismarketingpr.com; or psychedelicpr.com. Join the social conversation and follow Durée & Company on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn at @DureeCoPR.
