PR, Earned Media & Thought Leadership

Media List Building Core Method

Use when: building or refreshing the list of journalists, editors, and outlets relevant to your company. A targeted media list is more valuable than a massive blast list.

Start with the publications your target audience actually reads — not the publications that impress your board. For a B2B SaaS company selling to marketers, a placement in Marketing Brew may drive more qualified traffic than a mention in The Wall Street Journal. Build your list by: (1) Asking customers what they read (surveys, interviews). (2) Identifying journalists who cover your category by searching recent articles about competitors. (3) Checking bylines on pieces about your industry, including newsletters and podcasts. (4) Monitoring who covers your competitors and reaching out proactively.

Organize the list by tier: Tier 1 (5-10 publications with the most impact), Tier 2 (15-20 industry-specific outlets), and Tier 3 (niche blogs, podcasts, and newsletters). Focus relationship-building effort on Tier 1 journalists — quality of relationship beats quantity of contacts.

Journalist Pitch Framework Core Method

Use when: reaching out to journalists with a story. A bad pitch gets ignored; a good pitch gets covered.

Journalists receive hundreds of pitches daily. Yours needs to stand out by being relevant, timely, and easy to act on:

Subject line. Specific and newsworthy. "[Company] raises $X to solve [problem]" is informative. "Exciting announcement from [Company]!" is spam. Include the news in the subject line so the journalist can evaluate relevance without opening the email.

Opening sentence. Why this matters to the journalist's audience, not to you. "Marketing teams are spending 30% more on AI tools this year but seeing flat results — here's why" is a story their readers care about. "We're thrilled to announce our new AI feature" is a story only you care about.

The news. 2-3 sentences covering what happened, why it matters, and what it means for the industry. Be specific: include numbers, customer examples, and counterintuitive findings. Journalists need hooks, not press release boilerplate.

Supporting assets. Link to a press release, executive bio, and high-resolution images. Make it easy for the journalist to write the story quickly. Offer an exclusive interview if the story warrants it — exclusives increase the likelihood of coverage from your top-tier targets.

Follow-up. One follow-up email 3-5 days later is acceptable. More than that is harassment. If a journalist doesn't respond to two emails, they're not interested in this story — save the relationship for a future pitch.

Press Release Template Core Method

Use when: formally announcing news (funding, product launch, partnership, major customer win). A press release is a news artifact, not a marketing piece.

Structure: (1) Headline — factual, specific, newsworthy. (2) Dateline and opening paragraph — who, what, when, where, why in the first two sentences. (3) Supporting details — context, quotes from executives or customers, data points. (4) About section — company boilerplate. (5) Contact information. Keep it under 500 words. Use active voice, avoid superlatives ("revolutionary," "groundbreaking," "best-in-class"), and include at least one concrete statistic or customer example. The press release should give a journalist everything they need to write a 300-word news brief without calling you.

Thought Leadership Content Plan Core Method

Use when: building a thought leadership program for executives, founders, or subject-matter experts at your company.

Effective thought leadership has four requirements:

1. A point of view. Thought leadership without opinion is content marketing. The executive needs a clear, defensible perspective on where the industry is going, what's broken, or what most people get wrong. "AI will transform marketing" is not a point of view — everyone says it. "Most companies are using AI to do marketing faster when they should be using it to do marketing differently" is a point of view.

2. Original evidence. Perspectives backed by proprietary data, unique experience, or original research are more credible than opinions backed by nothing. "Based on analyzing 5,000 campaigns on our platform, we found that..." is more compelling than "I believe that..."

3. Consistent cadence. One article doesn't make a thought leader. A sustained cadence — 2-4 pieces per month across LinkedIn, guest articles, conference talks, and podcast appearances — builds recognition over time. The cadence matters more than any individual piece.

4. Channel strategy. LinkedIn for regular perspectives (1-2x/week). Guest articles in industry publications for deeper takes (1-2x/month). Conference speaking for authority and networking (2-4x/year). Podcast appearances for reach and personality (1-2x/month). Choose the channels that match the executive's strengths and the audience's habits.

Practically: most executives won't write their own content. The model that works: a 30-minute weekly interview with the executive to capture their thinking, which a writer turns into a LinkedIn post and a longer-form article. The executive reviews and approves, but the heavy lifting is done by the content team. The voice must be authentic — ghostwritten content that doesn't sound like the person undermines credibility.

Analyst Relations Playbook Specialized Method

Use when: your product is in a category that analysts cover (Gartner, Forrester, IDC, G2, etc.) and inclusion in their reports would influence enterprise buyers.

Analyst relations is a long game — typically 6-12 months before an analyst relationship produces visible results. The fundamentals: (1) Identify which analyst reports matter to your buyers. Ask your sales team: "Do prospects mention Gartner? Forrester? G2?" (2) Request analyst briefings — most analyst firms offer free 30-minute inquiry sessions where you present your product and strategy. Use these to build relationships, not sell. (3) Provide customer references when analysts request them for market studies. (4) Share original research and data that helps analysts write better reports. (5) Be honest about your weaknesses — analysts value vendors who are realistic about their positioning. Overpromising in an analyst briefing damages your credibility permanently.

PR Crisis Playbook Specialized Method

Use when: negative press or a public crisis hits. Having this playbook ready before you need it prevents panic-driven responses.

The crisis response framework:

1. Assess — is it a real crisis (data breach, widespread outage, ethical violation) or a manageable incident (one angry tweet, a critical blog post)? Proportional response is key — over-responding to minor incidents amplifies them.
2. Assemble the team — designate a spokesperson, loop in legal and leadership, and pause all scheduled marketing.
3. Respond quickly with facts — acknowledge the issue, state what you know, and commit to transparency. "We're aware of [specific issue] and are actively investigating. We'll provide an update by [specific time].".
4. Follow up with action — what happened, why, what you're doing to fix it, and what you're changing to prevent recurrence.
5. Monitor and learn — track media coverage and social sentiment. After resolution, conduct a post-mortem to improve the playbook.

The cardinal rules: never lie, never speculate, never blame customers, and never go silent. Silence is interpreted as guilt or indifference. Even "we don't have answers yet but we're working on it" is better than nothing.

Earned Media Measurement Specialized Method

Use when: reporting on PR and thought leadership ROI. Earned media is harder to measure than paid, but not impossible.

Metrics that matter:

1. Share of voice — how often you're mentioned vs. competitors in earned coverage. Track over time; trend matters more than absolute numbers.
2. Referral traffic — visits to your site from press coverage, tagged with UTM parameters.
3. Domain authority impact — high-quality press backlinks improve your site's SEO authority. Track domain rating over time.
4. Sales enablement usage — how often sales reps share press articles with prospects. This is often the highest-value use of PR but the least measured.
5. Brand search volume — do brand-name searches increase after major coverage? Google Trends gives a directional signal.
6. Qualitative impact — "I saw you in [publication]" from prospects, investors, and recruits. Capture these anecdotes systematically.

Avoid "advertising equivalency value" (AVE) — the practice of calculating what earned coverage would have cost as paid media. It's widely discredited because it conflates different types of media value. Earned coverage is not interchangeable with paid media — the whole point is that third-party credibility is worth something different.