Earned Press vs. Paid Press: Is one better than the other?

There are many ways to grow your design business, and paid and earned press are two of them.

However, these terms aren't always understood clearly by entrepreneurs and small business owners. The truth is that both types of press can help you reach new audiences and grow your business—but they work in different ways. Here's what you need to know:

Paid Press

Paid press is essentially a form of advertising, but feels more authentic than advertising in the traditional sense because it feels organic in that it's typically disguised as an article or blog post. Paid press can be a good way to get your name out there if you don’t have much of an online presence already and need some exposure.

However, paid press is not always reliable or effective. In fact, paid press isn't technically real press.

A lot of what passes as “paid media” nowadays is actually just sponsored content or native advertising—a fancy term that basically means it looks like regular news but comes with hidden agendas (usually marketing). This type of content has become so prevalent that it's easy for readers to mistake sponsored-content pieces for actual reporting on any given topic.

Paid press is just that... Anyone with a marketing budget can get it. The thing to remember about something that anyone can get is that it's usually not as exclusive or valuable. There's nothing inherently wrong with directly paid press, but it's typically not available in as many prestigious publications, which means you're typically going to only be able to use this form of press for lower tier publications.

Earned Press

Earned media exposure is free, and it’s more authentic and trustworthy than paid media because it's based on the value of the story you're pitching to the publication.

With earned media, you don’t need to pay for exposure; you earn it by getting your content shared or mentioned in relevant publications.

The investment you're making is in the PR agency that has excellent pitching skills and real relationships with high-end publications and journalists.

Paid and earned press can both be great, but your decision should be based on what your growth end goal is as a business. 

Paid and earned press can both be beneficial, but you should use them together in a strategic way.

Paid press is more targeted and can cost you a lot of money, but it’s also easier to get more coverage if it’s done right. The main thing to remember about paid press is that it's like a faucet.

Once you stop paying for it, the benefits will disappear just like when you turn an ad campaign off.

The reason for this is because publications are required to tag paid press placement as such for Google search engines. Google typically doesn't give as much traffic to non-organic articles or blogs simply because it places higher preference on value-driven (vs. commercial driven) content.

Earned media can be free, but it takes time to build up trust with the media so they will write about your product or service. However, once you've made those relationships its typically easier and faster each time to get into the press.

Paid coverage can be useful for brands that have a dedicated ads marketing budget or want to focus on a specific target market. On the other hand, earned media tends to be less expensive than paid coverage – and is historically more effective at driving viral results.

Understanding the roles paid and earned media play in growing a business will help you make a solid business investment as you plan out your growth strategy.

Both of these strategies can be very effective in your business, but it’s important not to neglect one over the other. A good marketing and PR agency will incorporate both forms of coverage into its plans so that they work together to bring more value to your brand and foster trust with our audience.

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