“Earned media” is never a more true term than with high prestige global publications. You really earn it. You leverage relationships, find the missing voice in the conversation, triangulate timing, and then work work work to move client stories across the finish line. It’s a commitment for clients and PR teams to keep the end in mind as you prepare to wring out the value of the placement on social media, in newsletters and in investor decks.
PR for both practitioners and journalists can often feel like hyper speed media opportunities. A press release, an email to a few dozen journalists with a few lines of context, a headshot of the CEO, and an open invite to learn more. That’s the short game. But there’s a long game too. It’s more sophisticated, strategic, and risker. But the rewards for a well placed article can change trajectories of companies.
Here’s a breakdown of two recent opportunities our team secured for clients.
CLIENT: BioIntelliSense – client since Jan, 2022
1ST CONTACT TO PUBLICATION: 80 days
EMAILS EXCHANGED: ~67 including interview and on-site visit scheduling, partner coordination and fact checks.
OPPORTUNITY: Our team had been pitching Kaiser Family Foundation Health News (KFF Health News) to inform journalists at the publication about our client’s impact and expansion into health systems at strategic inflection points over the past two years. The outlet is an ivory tower in journalism. The non-profit cultivates in-depth stories on the leading health trends of the day. KFF Health News delivers a strong syndication of its articles from NPR to Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post to dozens of daily newspapers and online publications, like AOL and yahoo! finance, that also pickup stories from KFF Health News.
We’ve engaged with reporters at the outlets with updates on BioIntelliSense’s momentum in the continuous patient monitoring space. On February 16th they emailed back. We replied 11 minutes later.
The reporter, Phil Galewitz had read the press releases our team produced for BioIntelliSense over the previous years, and wanted to speak to a hospital system using our client’s technology known as the BioButton®.
INVESTIGATIVE RIGOR: Phil conducted an interview with the CEO and Founder of BioIntelliSense to establish baseline information and our founder’s wider perspective on trends. Phil also wanted (and deserved) an onsite visit to Houston Methodist to view the integration of the technology. We worked with our partners at the health system to host Phil, who had access to care providers and patients. We also sent a physical BioButton to KFF Health News, at the reporter’s request, for photography.
IMPACT: The story published as a KFF Health News and Fortune exclusive nearly three months after our initial exchange. Syndication of the article began within hours, soon News Medical, yahoo! finance, yahoo! finance Canada, and AOL, picked up the story. With two weeks, more than 50 daily newspaper publications including the Miami Herald and Atlanta Journal Constitution published the story. Ultimately after two weeks of near daily syndication reaching reputable news sites with a combined total of nearly one billion unique visitors per month.
FOLLOW-ON: Multiple additional media opportunities directly resulted from the media placements including a podcast, industry publication and even a live interview on an AM radio station. The placement also spurred the VP and Research Director for Digital Health at Gartner to reach out for a new briefing on BioIntelliSense’s progress helping drive wider awareness of the technology.
CLIENT: Phase Genomics – client since 2018
1ST CONTACT TO PUBLICATION: 67 days
EMAILS EXCHANGED: ~133 including robust data exchanges, interview coordination, and urgent fact checks.
OPPORTUNITY: Our team was meeting in-person with the client. The CEO Ivan Liachko had just returned from a conference here in Seattle on salmon health. That happens here. A researcher was presenting findings based on insights from Phase Genomics’ technology. Ivan was blown away and even posted on LinkedIn about the results. When your client is excited, you’re excited. We capitalized on the momentum and already knew reporters would need to not just read, but see elements of the story to capture the potential for global impact. We baited the media waters–so to speak–before pitching reporters.
We interviewed the researcher from Chile, and posted this LinkedIn video. Our team then contacted a freelance journalist we’ve pitched and engaged with previously on behalf of Phase Genomics. The video and the post snagged her interest, but it was just the beginning.
Our team also knew we would need to draw the connection between the researcher and our client very clearly after the article popped. So we began building a social media amplification and content strategy.
INVESTIGATIVE RIGOR: We supplied additional information, including a timely hook to the journalists. She then conducted an interview with the researcher from Chile. Our Seattle-based team coordinated the call, prepared the researcher, and set the meeting time at the most convenient for the reporter who was reporting from Malaysia. We logged onto our Zoom call at 4:50am Pacific Time on Memorial Day to shake of the morning cobwebs ahead of our 5am call. Then the curve balls began. The researcher was attending a conference in Cuba at the time of the call. Cuba blocks Zoom. We quickly and (almost) smoothly transitioned to a Teams call for the 30 minute interview, which lasted nearly an hour. And that’s a good thing.
After a six point fact check, revisiting and sending published papers and slide decks from conferences we were set for publication. Then this email arrived three days before The Economist was set to go to print, *Urgent* fact check was the subject line, with the description of the question coming from a top, top editor. We addressed within a few hours and waited, then the next day, which was more than two months after our first connect, the story published online. The story in the physical copy took a slightly different complexion, and came out about two weeks later.
IMPACT: The Economist is nearly unimpeachable for its rigor, as we felt on the PR side. The publication is physically available in print in 200 countries, with more than 1.5 million copies published, while 7.5 million people a month visit The Economist website, and millions more follow the publication on social. But beyond its hefty subscriber count, the publication has amassed more than 27M followers on X.
FOLLOW-ON: Our team produced two tranches of social media content, including a day-one carousel for LinkedIn and a follow-on blog post with new video from the researcher and our client.
CONCLUSION: Most media placements don’t reach this level of investment. Often times a well-placed source can turn around a pitch, especially an exclusive story, within a few days or even a few hours. However, the focus and investment to secure top-tier media requires a marathon mindset filled with mini-sprints. Ultimately, top-tier media with its extreme scrutiny is a public and discoverable form of due diligence, validating and derisking clients to help create broad awareness and secure the relationships to reach their goals.