The PESO media model is an effective strategy used by brands and businesses to get their messages out to the public and build credibility. In this article, I will enlighten you on effectively maximizing your PR strategy by implementing the peso media model in your PR efforts. Before that, though, let’s look at what the PR media model is and why it’s even a thing in the first place.
Key Points
- The PESO media model is an effective strategy used by brands and businesses to get their messages out to the public and build credibility
- This PESO media strategy enables PR practitioners to link their efforts directly to business results.
- Earned media results from positive publicity—it requires proactive outreach and relationship-building with journalists, social media influencers, and key stakeholders to share compelling stories and create opportunities for media coverage.
- You can increase your chances of attracting media attention, building credibility, and expanding your reach by consistently creating worthwhile and newsworthy content.
- Owned media may be used to disseminate company news, demonstrate thought leadership, and give your audience access to priceless resources.
- To enjoy the benefits of shared media engagement, you should prioritize implementing authentic interactions, and materials that resonate with your audience.
PESO Media, What Is It?
I didn’t mention it earlier; on purpose by the way but PESO is actually an acronym. Let’s see, “P” stands for paid media, while “E, S, and O” stands for Earned, Shared, and Owned media, respectively. You could say that the PESO model is an in-depth approach to recognizing and comprehending various media types and how they interact in contemporary communication.
Let’s see these media types:
- Paid media:
Any media exposure that a brand purchases is referred to as paid media. Examples are traditional advertising, sponsorships, and online formats like sponsored content or pay-per-click advertising.
- Earned media:
This refers to any attention or coverage that a brand obtains without having to pay for it outright like they do with paid media. Reviews, social media mentions, newspaper coverage, and other types of third-party support can all be considered earned media.
- Shared media
This pertains only to social media, where content can be shared by customers and brands to increase its visibility. Examples of shared media include viral content, brand posts, and user-generated content.
- Owned media
Owned media refers to any media channel that a brand has complete control over. This might include the brand’s website, blog, email newsletters, brochures, and other self-created and distributed content.
As you continue to read, you’ll find out how we used these strategies to boost our engagement on all social media platforms.
Why Do PR Professionals Use the PESO Media Model?
To handle the struggle in the PR industry, Gini Dietrich came up with the peso media model, which she described as the corners of a pyramid. According to Gini Dietrich, the PESO media strategy enables PR practitioners to link their efforts directly to business results.
Here are the three major benefits of the PESO media model:
- Higher ROI
One of the primary benefits of the PESO model is that it allows businesses to maximize their resources and obtain a higher return on investment by carefully coordinating efforts across paid, earned, shared, and owned media. Instead of acting independently, these components collaborate to increase the impact of a communication strategy.
This is what I mean, for example. You could use the same insights from the paid media model to create content for owned media channels, while positive earned media coverage can be shared on social media.
This calculated approach ensures that resources are spent efficiently, which strongly influences audience engagement and brand perception.
Read: BRANDING AND PROMOTIONS: How To Promote Your Brand Effectively
- Building credibility and trust
Building credibility and trust is a key component of the earned media strategy in the PESO model. Unlike paid media, earned media is validated by third parties through favorable word-of-mouth, influencer endorsements, and media attention.
Your brand’s message gains credibility when it gets to people through earned media, which helps to build trust eventually. Businesses can boost their credibility and reputation and build closer ties with their target audience by incorporating earned media into their entire communication strategy.
- Wide publicity and influence
The PESO model offers wide exposure and reach across a range of media platforms. Businesses can develop a comprehensive communication strategy that targets consumers through a variety of engagements by integrating paid, earned, shared, and owned media components.
How to Implement the Peso Media Model Effectively
From my experience, implementing the PESO approach requires strategic execution and flawless integration of its four elements. To optimize the impact of the PESO model, you need to create solid strategies for each element while ensuring that they all work together seamlessly.
Below are some practical ideas and tactics for implementing and integrating each PESO strategy:
#1. Paid Media
The paid media model seems to be the cornerstone of the PESO model. It offers a targeted and immediate way to reach specific audiences. In other words, a paid media model helps promote your brand messages by placing your content right in front of your target audience. It includes sponsored content, advertising, paid search results, and sponsorships. When executing paid media strategies, you should align your messaging with overall communication objectives and target audience preferences.
These strategies involve leveraging social media advertising, sponsored content, and other paid channels to increase visibility and drive engagement. You could also leverage analytics and data insights from paid campaigns to inform content creation for other PESO components, maintaining a consistent story across all media types.
It’s best, however, to begin by testing various types of paid content first to determine which platforms have the best return for your brand.
#2. Earned Media
In your PR efforts to implement the PESO model, leveraging the power of earned media is also as important.
Earned media results from positive publicity—it requires proactive outreach and relationship-building with journalists, social media influencers, and key stakeholders to share compelling stories and create opportunities for media coverage.
You’re doing something right in your PR efforts with regard to implementing the PESO model when you focus on developing a robust media relations strategy that emphasizes building lasting relationships rather than one-off interactions. Hear this: You can increase your chances of attracting media attention, building credibility, and expanding your reach by consistently creating worthwhile and newsworthy content.
Read also: PUBLIC RELATIONS SERVICES: The PR Blueprint for Getting Your Brand Noticed
#3. Shared Media
The shared media model is the third PR strategy that works effectively as much. It leverages audience engagement on social media and other community-driven platforms. To enjoy the benefits of shared media engagement, you should prioritize implementing authentic interactions, and materials that resonate with your audience.
To increase the reach of your messaging, you should also promote social sharing, replying to comments, and taking part in conversations. Keep an eye on social media conversations and take action to foster a feeling of community around your business/brand.
#4. Owned Media
As the name implies, owned media is a company-owned platform. They include websites, blogs, and newsletters, where you focus on producing excellent, relevant, and captivating content that supports overarching communication objectives while optimizing owned media.
Maintaining content freshness and audience resonance requires regular updates across all owned media platforms. Also, ensure the content strategy for your owned platforms is consistent and relevant by incorporating insights from paid, earned, and shared media initiatives. Owned media may be used to disseminate company news, demonstrate thought leadership, and give your audience access to priceless resources.
The template below will further guide you in your journey of implementing the PESO media model.
Read also: 5 Steps to Crushing Your Competition with Content Strategy
What Challenges Come With Implementing the PESO Model?
Although using the PESO model offers considerable benefits, there are chances that businesses may face certain problems along the way. Knowing how to address these issues when they eventually happen is essential to ensure a smooth and effective integration of paid, earned, shared, and owned media components.
These are potential challenges that come with implementing the PESO model and how to overcome them:
#1. Finance Constraints
Finance has been one of the most significant issues that businesses of all sizes have had to deal with over the years. Limited financial resources can be a major hurdle, particularly for the paid media model or engaging in other promotional initiatives.
What to do:
In this matter, prioritize and allocate a budget based on your communication goals while concentrating on high-impact paid channels that resonate with your target demographic. Finally, build solid relationships with journalists and influencers to increase your exposure without relying only on paid promotions.
#2. Adapting to Industry Changes
To remain relevant in today’s dynamic sectors, particularly in the digital realm, businesses must constantly change their communication strategy. Staying current with industry trends and changes through continued education and professional development might help alleviate this challenge.
What to do:
Adopt a flexible approach that enables rapid adaptability to evolving trends. More importantly, always re-assess and update your PESO strategy to ensure that it meets the needs of your target audience and the industry landscape.
#3. Bringing internal teams into alignment
It can be difficult to get internal teams to coordinate when implementing the PESO strategy since different departments within an organization may have different goals. By encouraging cross-functional cooperation and highlighting the PESO model’s common goals, you may overcome this difficulty.
What to do:
Organize training sessions to make sure teams fully understand how their contributions fit into the bigger picture and the interconnected nature of the approach. Provide open lines of communication between departments to promote knowledge exchange and a transparent working culture.
Check out these articles:
- TEAM BONDING ACTIVITIES: Fun Exercise Ideas for Work in 2024
- WHAT IS A COMPANY CULTURE: Types, Examples & Best Practice
How Can I Evaluate My PESO Strategy?
After implementing the PESO model, you can measure its effectiveness using Media analytics tools. By identifying and reviewing metrics like social engagement, key message penetration, and press release pick-up, as well as by finding trends in your media coverage, you can evaluate and improve your PESO strategy.
Conclusion
Using the PESO Model can help you optimize your communications and build your brand. Integrating the four media types allows your team to create consistent and authentic messaging that has a larger impact on your audience.
At Lammphills, we aim to redefine reputation management, empowering individuals and brands to create narratives with purpose, authenticity, and impact. We believe every story deserves to be told with integrity and resonance, using innovative strategies and creativity to navigate the public space. We are just a click away.
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