The definition of earned media has changed, and it’s giving PR a lot more to work with.
In this episode of SaaS Half Full, Ashley Waters, VP of Media Relations at PAN Communications, discussed the rise of new media channels and dove into why PR and AI visibility strategies are complementary to each other, not identical.
What counts as earned media now?
Once upon a time, earned media meant print and broadcast. The internet changed the game, but most marketers still saw coverage as a piece in an established news publication.
Today’s landscape has thrown that notion out the window. Newsrooms are contracting. Podcasts, newsletters and online communities are growing. Reporters from major outlets are leaving to launch their own Substacks.
These channels reach engaged, niche audiences.
“Your sort of goal and your approach to earned media, the strategy is to be a lot broader than it used to be. But I actually think that’s a good thing because there are more people to tell your story to.” — Ashley Waters
It’s not the size or the prestige of the outlet that matters. Some of the new channels may be small, but they reach engaged, targeted audiences. Ashley said there’s always going to be massive value in a top-tier piece of coverage, but there’s a lot to be said about appearing in your ICP’s inbox or podcast feed.
This shift means thought leaders must be open-minded about the opportunities they accept.
Marketers also can’t fall into the trap of measuring share of voice alone. Relevance matters more than volume.
“I’d take one deep article with a strong key message, in front of the audience you’re trying to reach, over 20 placements where you’re just a blip alongside a competitor set.” — Ashley Waters
AI visibility should complement your earned media strategy
AI visibility comes up in every client conversation we have, but it’s important to note that it isn’t the same as earned media. The two run side by side toward the same business goals, but the execution is different.
It’s tempting for brands to equate AI visibility with volume, assuming that the more places you’re named, the more visible your brand will be. But we’re finding that often outlets with larger audiences sit behind paywalls, which means bots often can’t even crawl that coverage.
“You have to have a strategy for both of these things that can happen at the same time, but you need to be willing to accept that what impacts AI visibility is maybe not the super cool, sexy headline in a big top-tier publication.” — Ashley Waters
Listen to the full episode to dig deeper into pitching Substack creators, building a multi-spokesperson bench, and setting realistic AI visibility goals.
Episode Transcript
This has been generated by AI and optimized by a human.
[00:00:00] Ashley Waters: When I talk to my teams about pitching Substack,
[00:00:03] the most important thing is to personalize, understand their audience, and treat them like a person, like treat them like a human. Because If you can show in your first note to them that you’re paying attention, that you authentically have read and considered a beat in their space, you’re much more likely to at least get a response to them and open the door.
[00:00:24] Hi, and welcome back to SaaS Half Full, the only show serving B2B SaaS and AI marketers. I’m Lindsey Groepper, EVP at PanBlast, and I will be both your host and bartender today. I had an awesome conversation with Ashley Waters, who is the Vice President of Media Relations at PAN. I always love sitting down with a colleague and picking their brains, and this is a topic that I have been talking about a lot, which is the value of earned media in today’s AI visibility landscape.
[00:00:52] What is the new definition? Who is redefining the rules? And what value does your earned media strategy bring today? Ashley’s [00:01:00] gonna dive into this topic and more. If you’d care to, grab a drink and join me as I speak with Ashley
[00:01:06] Lindsey Groepper: Hey, Ashley. Welcome to SaaS Half Full
[00:01:09] Ashley Waters: Glad to be here
[00:01:10] Lindsey Groepper: I am happy to have you. We are coming off of a long Labor Day weekend and, you know, we might be feeling relaxed and rested, but what we’re doing at noon on a Tuesday is we are having a drink,
[00:01:22] Ashley Waters: Yep, sure
[00:01:22] are. what did you mix up today? So, um, because it’s noon and I still need energy, I’m having an espresso martini. Feels very appropriate in a pretty gorgeous outfit, if I do say so Love that. Most people listen to this, but this is also on YouTube, so if you’re watching, uh, you can see it. But if you’re not, she has it in, like, an official, very fancy martini glass. Looks delicious. I had a party, like, two weeks ago, and everyone drank me out of literally, like, everything I had in my house, which I forgot about. So I grabbed one of the few things that was left in my basement fridge, which is a Kettle One Botanical, [00:02:00] which is a vodka spritz with grapefruit and rose. So I’m gonna open up this thing. Uh, it… I, I don’t know, never had it before, but it makes me a little leery that it’s the, one of the only things left.
[00:02:11] Lindsey Groepper: I’m like, “Why weren’t people drinking it?” So we’ll give it a try, but cheers. Thanks for joining me.
[00:02:16] Ashley Waters: Cheers!
[00:02:16] Nice having me When’s your first sit?
[00:02:21] Lindsey Groepper: Uh, I don’t love, um, floral flavors like an elderflower and, like, lavender in my drinks, and I, I can definitely taste the rose. It tastes like soap, so not my favorite, but I’m gonna, but I’m gonna go
[00:02:33] ahead and drink it.
[00:02:35] Sorry, Shadowbone
[00:02:37] Ashley Waters: be back
[00:02:38] Lindsey Groepper: Botanicals. But I will continue to drink this thing as we talk. Um, well, Ashley, thank you for joining me.
[00:02:44] Um, Ashley is a colleague of mine at PAN, and she is our all things media relations, earned media expert. And we’ve had a lot of similar conversations, a lot that have been swirling before I hit record. Um, we [00:03:00] share many of the same philosophies in terms of this new beast, uh, new definition of earned media today. Um, so this is something that I’m feeling really passionate about lately that has been all over my LinkedIn. I’m sure people are tired of me talking about it. Um, so it’s good that I have your voice, Ashley, to now dive into it. But, you know, the earned media has been around really long time. It is not going away.
[00:03:24] It’s changed its face many times, but it is in a bit of a spotlight, uh, here over the last year. And depending on who you ask, either, like, earned media is the sh*t and you have to invest everything you can in it, or they’re like, “Media relations sucks. It’s dying. There’s no place for it in the LM visibility world.” So we want to digest this and dive into it. Um, but before we do, I want to give our listeners a bit more understanding of who you are as a human being, um, how long you’ve been at PANN, what was your life pre that, um, and then what is your role today [00:04:00] at PANN, what you do for our clients.
[00:04:02] Ashley Waters: Great. Thank you so much. Yeah. So I am the VP of E-Relations at PAN. So if you, um, you
[00:04:08] know, are part of an agency or work with an agency, it’s a somewhat unusual title because they’re often specialists in IM, in social, in content. but aren’t really specialists in earned media or media relations. And I think that’s because there’s usually an expectation that everyone’s a specialist. And listen, that would be amazing. That would be so great if everyone was, uh, you know, an absolute specialist when it comes to earned media.
[00:04:33] But the truth is, like any job, there are people that just really, really get it and really, really love it and live it and breathe it. So I’ve been at PAN for 12 years, and when I was a director, I basically asked if I could carve out my own path for my own career and form team media and be the director of media relations at that point.
[00:04:54] Um, and they allowed me to. They really– I felt like wearing cowboy cow shoes, and they gave me their blessing and let me go for [00:05:00] it, which was a really cool experience to be able to build my team and actually figure out what my job looked like. So, you know, my team it’s, you know, there’s about 10 of us, and we specialize in really understanding the evolving media landscape.
[00:05:12] Everything from shrinking newsrooms to rising platforms like Substack and podcasts to AI visibility in heck of earned media, and essentially how do we evolution of the newsroom and technology and reporters, what that means for us telling our client’s story, How we maintain relationships with top-tier reporters in a way that’s also really organic and authentic.
[00:05:32] Um, you know, this is… A big part of PR is relations. I think that’s probably the When my team hears me say it the most. You have to have relationships with reporters. You have to build them and maintain them. Um, so that’s a lot of what we do, too. So for me, being able to talk about this is, like, such a passion of mine.
[00:05:52] I get really excited about it ’cause frankly, I think it’s cool. I think it’s interesting. I think this is like a space that, like you said, has a spotlight on it [00:06:00] right now, um, when it’s historically, like, ebb and flowed in relevancy and importance and, you know, it’s a glad eye on. that it’s always important.
[00:06:08] It’s always relevant. But right now, this moment, feels like we’re having a bit of a renaissance of
[00:06:12] journalist as storytellers
[00:06:13] Lindsey Groepper: Yes, which is great. And it is like a tad ironic and annoying that for decades we’ve been saying how credibility compounds and you have to earn trust through third-party validation and having other people talk about you. And it’s taken like this bot revolution for people to be like, “Oh, great. Yeah, we should do that.” Um, so that’s like a little annoying, but, you know, happy to, happy to have the spotlight. Um, well, Ash, for decades we have defined earned media as one thing, uh, and historically that has been earned coverage from third-party media outlets. So whether that’s print, broadcast or online, that has been sort of the halo of earned media. Talk to us today when you’re looking [00:07:00] at how earned media is being defined, how that has changed, what that means today, is it causing confusion, and how that’s like impacting the work we’re doing for our clients too?
[00:07:11] Ashley Waters: Yeah, I think it’s always been changing. It just feels like right now it’s getting more attention. You know, when you went from, like, magazines, you know, their print versions closing or fewer issues, but it was something really prolific online, that was a change. Uh, when you went from top-tier business press developing multiple newsletters a day, you know, newsletters based on categories, um, based on topic, based on industry, that changed things.
[00:07:39] you have reporters that while newsrooms are shrinking, there’s all of a sudden news, uh, reporters focused on very, very specific beats. I think AI is the most obvious one right now, but a few years ago during Eras tour, there were Taylor Swift reporters specifically focused on her and her people. I could be a Kanye, Like, so it’s always changing, but right now I just think it’s getting a little bit more attention because there’s more [00:08:00] awareness. So I’ll use Substack as the example here. Substack is the one that a lot of reporters that are traditional reporters. Alex Conrad was at Forbes forever, a key staff writer, Erin Dougan, he started Upstart Media, Substack that has gotten a ton of attention. I think he’s like the ultimate example of, you know, someone that wanted to shift his attention from being part of a team, but, you know, he had a, a hierarchy, assignments, to just writing what he wants to write about and focusing on the space that he wants to focus on.
[00:08:31] there’s been a lot of that with reporters. Some of it was due to the fact of there were layoffs, so they decided to pursue a new avenue. Some of it was just because they wanted to get really specific and niche in their own space. So while there’s always going to be massive value in a top-tier piece of coverage, whether that’s business press, and then the audience you’re trying to reach, a top-tier trade, a top-tier tech publication, there’s also a lot of value now on v- on podcasts like this, on V- on, you know, in [00:09:00] newsletters and in Substacks.
[00:09:01] Your sort of goal and your approach to earned media, the strategy is to be a lot broader than it used to be. But I actually think that’s a good thing because there’s more people to tell your story to, and much more people to think about what commentary, what trend, what macro impact did you even discuss and have a real insight on, like who you’re speaking to is gonna care about, you know, what the topic is that you’re really excited about.
[00:09:26] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah. I mean, with fewer outlets, there was less discussion around, like, what is, you know, what is the most valuable. And before I hit record, you and I were talking about the conversations that we now have to have with clients around why they should be excited about participating in a Substack and having coverage in a Substack newsletter, um, or in a very niche podcast. And some of it has to do with AI visibility, but others just, like, the, the audience that’s being reached. But we still are having, you know, clients that say, “Well, don’t worry about all [00:10:00] that other stuff. We just want top-tier media.” Talk to us about how AI visibility has changed what sources are considered valuable now. And do you– A-and also would just love your opinion on do you feel like there are, you know, more and more clients that are still, like, being left behind in more of that, like, traditional earned media definition? Or do you have clients that are being, you know, more on board with some of these, the new media opportunities? but talk to us about, like, what, what source is valuable? What sources add value and in what way?
[00:10:34] Ashley Waters: Yeah. No, it’s a great question. There hasn’t been a client this year that I’ve spoken to, or from my clients, whether it’s a client I jump in and have conversations with, like someone else at PAN or like as leader of Team yes, sometimes I’ll join in on conversations, a new biz pitch, a client kickoff, not a single conversation hasn’t discussed AI visibility, and for good reason.
[00:10:55] Like, that is an important topic that we need to be discussing. What I would say is that there needs to [00:11:00] be a strategy that exists for AI visibility, but it needs to be parallel to your other earned media strategy. And that all depends on your goals. If your goal is to increase awareness, if your goal is to impact investors, if your goal is to, you know, grow your customer base, if your goal is to hire and, like, have more awareness out when you’re, you’re regional, that’s going to impact where we want to be and what you want to be talking about and who you’re using within, you know, your bench of experts.
[00:11:27] It’s the same thing with AI visibility. Yes, you want to show up in those queries. That is obviously important. You want to show up alongside your competitors. You want to be needed. But the domains that are driving AI visibility are not going to be the same domains typically that are pretty doing big feature stories on your company and something exciting you’re doing, or a cool industry take, or a product launch, or a new, you know, C-suite hire.
[00:11:51] It’s going to be things that are trades, which first off, I love a trade. I feel like trades don’t get the love they
[00:11:57] Lindsey Groepper: Love a trade
[00:11:58] Ashley Waters: They are so valuable. They are so [00:12:00] important. The uh, the reporters are so knowledgeable. They ask great questions, but you’re also reaching your exact target audience. So, like, always love for the trades.
[00:12:09] But trades are also the ones that are impacting domains a lot, um, for AI visibility. And that’s ’cause, A, they are subject matter experts, and B, they are doing articles often that maybe mention more than one in the space. So I’ll show you an example here. If you wanted to search, up top at PAN like best mid-sized PR agency, and you know, PAN wants to make sure they showed up, they might be showing up in an article from PR Week that say, “Here are the top 10 mid-sized agencies for B2B tech PR, and we’re going to be listed as AI competitors.”
[00:12:40] That is not a bad thing. It’s exactly the query exactly the answer. But a list of 10 competitors all talking about us, while that’s great, it’s maybe not as great as a big sexy story in, you know, Fortune talking about this huge evolution that a company made. We all know that there’s different value there, but they’re not going to serve [00:13:00] the same goal.
[00:13:01] So I think when you’re thinking about AI visibility, and this is also the problem we talk about at SMU before we start recording, but like the education component You have to have a strategy for both of these things that can happen at the same time, but you need to be willing to accept that what impacts AI disability is maybe not the super cool, sexy headline in like a big top-tier publication.
[00:13:25] That’s okay. It has a reason, it has a purpose, it serves a goal, but it is different than they may… But a lot of people have traditionally called out Like when I came out with the client I mean, it was like asking this, “What’s your dream headline and what’s your dream publication?” Just so we help me understand where they are.
[00:13:42] It’s always gonna be a Bloomberg, a Wall Street Journal, a Fortune. That’s totally cool. I get it. I understand that. But if their goal is to be like, “I wanna be known as the most, you know, the absolute best company for this exact need,” all right. You’re– If you’re a fintech company, then you’re gonna [00:14:00] wanna be in payments.
[00:14:01] You’re gonna wanna be in, you know, that, that’s like American Banker. Like those are the outlets
[00:14:05] that will actually be in that.
[00:14:07] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah. Um, and I like this parallel tracks conversation because we’ve, you know, and I, I take a lot of our, like, you know, prospect calls, um, where I’m, I’m qualifying whether a potential client would be a good fit. Um, and I have had, uh, prospects say, “Well, um, unless an article is gonna index in LLM search, it’s, uh, it’s not worth my time.” And it’s like there are so many layers and levels to that, that I have to peel back. And it does go back to this, like, parallel track, is that we can’t only make every marketing decision, PR or not, for the bots. Like, there’s almost this two-headed internet, right? Where it’s you have the buyers and the bots, and yes, they intersect, but the, there is still immense value in a piece of earned media, if we’re talking traditional media coverage, whether or not it indexes on [00:15:00] LLMs or not. And there’s a way higher percent chance that it’s not going to, by the way, for those of you listening. Uh, good luck if you’re like, “Well, I’m only gonna pursue media opps that are gonna appear in LLMs,” good luck, or please write me if you find the, the magic, secret sauce to do that. But it is likely not gonna index, especially right away in LLMs. you know, recent reports show that of the, you know, the URLs that do surface that are earned media, um, almost half of them are over a year old. So, like, the recency is an issue also. but there is immense value, right? In having this parallel track, you can still have press coverage that speaks to all those audiences that you talked about, that you can leverage throughout your social channels, that you can use in sales enablement, that you can service to investors, that has nothing to do with the LLM side of the house. But it’s really frustrating that it’s like the spotlight has also created some confusion. so Ashley, talk to us about how earned media is defined now in sort of [00:16:00] the LLM definition, because I think this is what causes some of this confusion of, like, earned media is, you know, where it’s at right now, I’m gonna invest in earned media be- and then immediately, you know, my AA visibility is gonna go up if I do media relations. But talk to us about how the LLMs are defining earned and why that’s causing a bit of confusion.
[00:16:17] Ashley Waters: Yeah, it’s really interesting. So we recently started using this tool, Profound, which I thought was really cool because it gave a lot of data, to support things that I already anecdotally was talking about. But like, you get a lot, like, authoritative insight data back what I’ve already been talking about from a strategic point of view. One of those things I got into, of course, was the domains.
[00:16:36] What domains were they actually talking about when they talk about earned media? So, you know, I would take a kind, a look over the course of a month or a quarter and look at our spikes “Oh, wow, we didn’t announce it and see these big spikes. This is so great. Let me drill in a layer deeper.”
[00:16:51] And I would see, literally be like, “What are the top 10 domains impacting this spike?” I’d say on average, 50% are what I [00:17:00] would consider earned media. 50% are what I would say are, “Yep, that is a publication on our media list. It’s a reporter we talk to. We placed that article. It’s one we like to flag.
[00:17:11] It’s one we, you know, highlighted on our social media. This is a great piece of coverage.” The other 50% are things like Wikipedia, Right. Not saying there isn’t a ton of value there, but it’s not what I would call earned media. It is a different type of source. One that certainly impacts LLMs, one that absolutely has a place in the conversation, but we’re talking traditional earned media, that’s not what that is.
[00:17:34] That’s completely different. Um, so there is a difference in the definitions, and I think that’s okay. But then I think that we all need to be a little bit more realistic of, okay, you listed the top 10, only five of them are truly the domains that we can impact, and have real reporters. Also, there’s like third-party outlets that have bots basically writing their articles.
[00:17:56] They’re like repurposing things that they, you know, scroll and, and find, and [00:18:00] then you– type in a situation where I have to like get a correction there’s no real person for me to talk to. It’s just bots. Like that exists, too. So like while we talked about earned media opportunities broadly, which I do still think is true, we’re talking specifically about the ones that impact LLMs are relatively defined at this moment in time.
[00:18:21] And look, we’re all building a plane as we fly it. All of this is evolution, and I think if we have this conversation a year from now, it’ll be very different. And that’s okay You have to be flexible with that. there’ll be some things that we can authoritatively point to as like, yes, this one does impact, you know, the LLMs and the visibility.
[00:18:38] But this one, I don’t even know what that is. I’ve never heard of it. I just looked at it and it looks like it’s nonsense
[00:18:44] Lindsey Groepper: Right. And, and I’ve seen too in some reports where LLMs are defining earned media, including in that bucket like academic papers. You know, where there a- it’s, it’s third party, sure, right? There’s a professor or someone that’s r- doing a, um, the, you know, their, [00:19:00] their thesis and they, they talk about some companies, that’s considered earned media, but, like, that is not a thing that we’re, that we can impact.
[00:19:06] That’s actually not even a thing that the brand can impact, but it’s still being bucketed as earned media. Things like patent filings, and certainly like reviews. And if your consumer brand is app store reviews, it’s, if, if you’re technology, it’s gonna be G2, Capterra reviews, which are things that as a brand you can impact, but that’s considered earned as well. And so I think the big disconnect is that when, whether you have an internal PR team or you’re working with an agency, is when AI visibility is your goal, increasing AI visibility is your goal through your earned media strategy, when your PR team brings you an opportunity to have a presence in a Sub Stack newsletter or says, “We are going to write a LinkedIn post for your CEO that’s contextually relevant to these specific prompts and words,” listen to them instead of saying, “Don’t worry about that,” [00:20:00] or, “I don’t want to be on that podcast, hardly anybody listens.” It’s like you, if this is your goal, then t- we’ll tell you how to get there based on the data. And that’s one of the things that you’re excited about is just we actually do have some data to point back to in terms of, of earned media’s value, which historically has been pretty difficult to measure other than certainly, you know, web traffic and, and things that we’ve always measured.
[00:20:24] But talk to us about what excites you about having some actual data backed now, uh, answers supporting earned media.
[00:20:31] Ashley Waters: people that like earned media and like PR are already in. They’re already fans. They get it. They’re excited about it. Y- There’s not a ton of education there. A huge part of my job, though, is educating people
[00:20:42] that necessarily get it, and that’s okay.
[00:20:44] Look, like this is Literally my specialty. So like if you don’t
[00:20:47] that’s fine. That’s not your area, it’s fine. But often they’re looking for a very black and white value, ROI, what am I getting out of this? What am I actually getting out of this? And [00:21:00] it’s a hard thing to define. and the day that someone comes up with a perfect formula
[00:21:04] all our lives will be so much easier.
[00:21:06] But the Truth is, defining ROI is
[00:21:10] not that easy, because a part of it is about like awareness. And it’s, I can’t say I’m gonna absolutely impact this percentage on your pipe by having this article in this outlet. It’s just not something I can guarantee. that being said, there is now data that is very helpful in showing. So, like, I think the metric that I personally hate the most is share of voice. Uh, I f**king hate share of voice.
[00:21:33] I hate it. Um, it is highly a scalable metric because you can’t control the other companies, right? They could be pumping out a, a press release every two weeks. They could be doing negative coverage. They could reach far more industries than maybe your company does that they’re a little more specific, a little more niche, and they’re talking about 50 industries, and you’re talking about two.
[00:21:54] So, the article-ization could be out of control. So, like, if their share of voice is 50% and yours is [00:22:00] 10%, and you’re saying, “Well, we want to hit 50%,” I’m like, “I, I quite literally can’t do that based on what your actual business goals are.” Like, what if we do away with one metric, that would be the metric, because I don’t think it has a ton of value to it.
[00:22:17] That being said, it is a better. Let’s ask for it consistently, and I do understand why, because you talk about your competitors where you are against them, blah, blah. Like, so we see if we can add in data like AI visibility, or we talk about, um, share of impact, like the impact of the article, that makes a big difference.
[00:22:38] You know, we talk about articles and we look at like, okay, what’s your health location already based on, like how we rank them out, um, how much your key message is being pulled through. Are you, you know, the, the main person being interviewed? Like, how, like, prominent are you in this placement? The impact is really different.
[00:22:55] I would take one focal deep article that [00:23:00] has a great key message pulled through in front of the audience that you’re really trying to get in front of, whatever your goal is, over twenty placements that are just mentions where you’re alongside a competitor set or you’re just, you know, a blip on the radar.
[00:23:12] Sure, those, those twenty placements will rank higher per share of voice than this one gorgeous piece of coverage. That’s just the reality how the data works. So instead, we are looking at things with, you know, AI visibility of like where you’re spiking throughout the quarter and what kind of drove that where you actually see, okay, so this interview that maybe, you know, the, um, CTO didn’t
[00:23:34] really wanna do. They Their, Their CFO’s really busy. They didn’t have a ton of bandwidth for it. It didn’t relate directly back to a value prop of the company, but they’re an expert in it, so we talked them into doing it. We can see them, the spike in AI visibility that that one piece of coverage and it’s not just that one piece of coverage, it’s the halo effect.
[00:23:53] ‘Cause a lot of times, especially if we’re talking about publications that are also trying to drive their own click rates, ’cause that’s an infinite hack by [00:24:00] AI visibility. They’re putting it out on their LinkedIn, they’re putting it out in their newsletters. If they have a podcast, and if they’re talking about there.
[00:24:06] If they have a Substack, they’re going personal club stack and maybe a coalition up there as well. There’s that halo effect as well was actually talking to a reporter on Friday, and he was saying the thing that– the topics that like kind of generate the most interest for them are the ones that everyone’s already talking about, like on, let’s say, LinkedIn.
[00:24:23] Like something that they post and generates fifty, sixty, seventy comments, like, “Okay, that’s a topic we need to do a talk about in our class now.” So reporters are looking to generate the higher engagement as well. So that is all data that’s really useful and we can point back to you, like, “Here is the value of you doing this,” versus like, “Okay, we did zero rise in share of voice this month.
[00:24:47] That’s because, you know, and your competitor had this massive breach and they were, you know, they like hundreds of articles out there
[00:24:53] Lindsey Groepper: Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh, I, uh, share your feelings about share of voice. I wish it would fall asleep and I would just take [00:25:00] a pillow and just ever so gently just s- s- make it die a very painless death. But, um, yeah, I mean, I remember we had a client that was, like, super pissed because their, um, share of voice went down, um, and their competitor share of voice went up in a quarter, and they were like, “The board is, you know, furious,” blah, blah, blah.
[00:25:21] And we’re like, “Well, if your CEO also wants to, um, be indicted for corporate espionage, then your share of voice too can increase.” It was like, it will increase on something negative. It was like, yes, yes, they were in the news a lot. Mm-hmm. Sure were. Yeah, for
[00:25:42] Ashley Waters: Sure, Clark
[00:25:42] Lindsey Groepper: really bad. but yeah, we, we share in that feeling, um, about SOV. and we’re trying to, you know, we’re all playing around with new metrics around, you know, share of voice as it relates to, uh, AI visibility as well. and, you know, uh, different agencies are all coming up with new metrics. Um, but [00:26:00] it is, it is nice to have some data that we can… new data that we can point to. if we could take a step back and talk about, specifically the, the more traditional earned media, um, that most people define as earned media, are there parts of traditional PR that you feel like in the AI era are, are losing value, and are there parts that are becoming more important?
[00:26:23] Ashley Waters: Yeah. It’s a good question. I don’t know if there are parts that I would say are losing value because I guess it’s just the value is shifting, but it’s still about the audience you want to reach. That’s always, again, on the first question I ask a client, “What is your business goals?” Like, what are the actual business goals?
[00:26:41] ‘Cause our PR goals are only able to align to your business goals. That’s certainly where we pick up, and what kind of publications we should be going after and
[00:26:49] have conversations- which we haven’t, which people we should be using. So, like, you know, I’ll use, like, CEO profiles, like, were something that a lot of [00:27:00] clients always wa- always ask for. Like, “Oh, we want our CEO our PR, our CEO that, like, he likes doing the year. We want to have our profiles out there.” Um, and New York Young President Office went away for a while, and then it came back in the last couple years.
[00:27:11] Um, you know, she’s pretty much only interviewing, like, her most recent article was on Great Mind, like the CEO point of mind. It, it’s a very top, top, top, top, top company recognition kind of opportunity. I’m not saying that it’s not possible, but let’s be realistic here. Some of these companies are startups, and people are just learning about them.
[00:27:31] It’s probably not the likelihood that’s gonna happen next quarter. Is there still immense value if you manage to do it? Of course there is. But it’s also the likelihood we need to be a bit more realistic about. Now, there’s a Substack that we worked with recently called Workwire that just pops up leadership in the workplace.
[00:27:48] I have a company, Edgebeam, they’re a relatively new company, nothing like Unacann. they’re a new company. And the CEO on a call recently, was talking about how his most important job is being chief clarity [00:28:00] officer and how we’ve got to, like be really clear his company is the most important job. I thought that was great.
[00:28:06] I thought it was so interesting. In an age where, you know, again, as ebbs and flows, in the economy and the environment, where it’s all about inspiration or it’s all about what you do or it’s all about, you know, innovation. He’s like, “My, my most important job is being clear.” I was like, “That’s great.”
[00:28:21] We ended up pitching this to a Substack, that he wrote a– dinner interview with him did a feature story on it. I would love to say that I know Jordan well enough at The Wall Street– New York Times, and I could go interview Edgy CEO of Carter Office. Like, that’s not realistic.
[00:28:38] it’s less about opportunities losing value. It’s more about what your goal is, what is realistic at this stage of your business. Because also, I think with current media, it’s, it’s a rolling thunder. You have to build momentum. If you– like, coverage begets coverage. If your CDO starts being everywhere and talking about different things and participating in conversations, especially for [00:29:00] podcasts, they are broadcasts as well.
[00:29:02] They want to see that there’s experience, that they are good on mic or good on camera, they can participate in these conversations, especially if they’re live. With a really interesting interview, but they’re gonna say something that’s different than everyone else is saying.
[00:29:15] So, sometimes it’s, it’s more about analyzing, like, where you are in that moment and- where you want to be, like, six months to a year from now and then building a plan to get there. That’s when things I would say gaining or lose value. It’s about more of the, like company, the goal, of the individual
[00:29:32] and very why-based
[00:29:34] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah. and I also wanted to, um, talk a little bit more about some of this non-traditional media substack being one of them. You addressed it at the top of the conversation, um, because, you know, we are seeing more, um, more substacks pop up. We’re seeing more appetite for our clients to participate in them, and we’re, you know, we’re learning along the way how the best methods to pitch some of these substack editors. Um, and [00:30:00] it, it was becoming such a prevalent conversation and you’re educating people, clients all the time on it, that you did a deep dive and said, “Hey, Team Media, let’s put some data behind this.” Um, and it was really interesting and honestly it surprised me as well. I mean, one of the things that stood out, um, was that around 40% of general consumers, and again, this is like, these are not in a specific industry, this is just general consumers, that about 40% of them subscribe to at least one substack weekly. Um, and that, uh, one in four people have increased their substack consumption. So it is definitely a viable channel, um, and one to think about. Um, for those listening that do not have like a substack strategy, which I realize is twofold, one’s creating your own, the other is I’m talking about like pitching substacks as media, what advice do you have for, uh, marketers listening?
[00:30:54] Ashley Waters: Yeah. It’s so, it’s so what you say. So I to truly take zero credit here. My [00:31:00] team did this research. I hacked the sh*t, but they did all the work. And I was so blown away by it. I also thought it was really cool. Like
[00:31:06] honestly, yeah, that was really interesting. But the results were, I came back, but I’ve been like, “The stats are talking about I want to article more.” So it– those numbers even rise when you a generational breakdown. So it was 55% of Gen Z and 49% of millennials regularly consume Substack. So, like, younger generations are also really going to sell SaaS to get recreation. And about, I don’t know, three or four months ago, I posted on LinkedIn basically asking my audience, like, “Where are you getting your news?” I’m genuinely curious.
[00:31:37] I always ask in interviews from people from Hider, “What’s your news source?”
[00:31:40] I know where I get mine, but I’m always open to getting new news sources. First off, most of these
[00:31:45] are never on LinkedIn posts, so it blew it away because I don’t have like that many followers, and I was like getting thousands of like interactions. Um
[00:31:54] a ton of people were talking about SaaS sites and podcasts is where they get their news like daily basis and like, a quick, [00:32:00] digestible, easy-to-understand way, exactly the space they were learning. I thought that was so cool, so interesting to learn. so I think as far as other worries that we have covered when it comes to Substack, so I have now, my teams have secured blog issues with Substack.
[00:32:17] It’s, uh, I’ve always said about when I am terrible for outing. A win is a win. Like, I cheer for any team no matter what crap athletic’s in. But what’s interesting to me is this very different way. So if I write, like, the example from earlier like the CEO and require a fee, proactively pitch that reporter.
[00:32:33] But the first thing we did is we reached out to them and asked them if they could talk to us. ‘Cause you can actually get blocked on Substack if
[00:32:42] you are f**king secret spamming,
[00:32:44] up people. Like, it– So I, I once went very gently, “Hey, are you open to pitches? Like, if not, well we do a, we walk. Like,
[00:32:52] ’cause like
[00:32:52] I said earlier, relationship-building is actually the most important element in media. Um, so if we don’t have a relationship there, nothing else matters. [00:33:00] He was like, “Yep, I’m all good, Zoe. Keep bringing it. all I just necessarily retweet.” Great. And that’s how we were able to engage. Other ones we’ll see, The Finners Up, they could tip toe. The Finners Up I see on Quoted relatively often, which I think is awesome because, you know, Quoted is definitely a resource that we use pretty regularly. It’s nice to not only understand like specific reporters looking for sources or specific stories, but I also think it gives us a good look into the larger conversations and trends that are taking place where they don’t necessarily like, have a great score sport and are trying to understand the larger narratives. So it’s a good,
[00:33:29] like, trend indicator as well, that I use Quoted for. What we saw, you know, The Finners Up looking for commentary on an article and, you know, their fintech and I had a client in the space, who they was able to participate in it. So not only did that result in coverage from that specific opportunity, but then opened the door to that report. Moving forward, we offered, right, “Do you take Hi, Mike. Do you take contributed content for your Substack?” Not all of them do Much like traditional media, some do, some don’t. He’s like, “Yep, absolutely. Send me the abstract.” And that’s resulted in coverage and [00:34:00] Byline seen. So I think that when I talk to my teams about pitching Substack, I feel like I’m taking myself path like, 10, 15 years
[00:34:09] ago So like, at the beginning of my PR career and listening to my then George talk to me just about pitching in general.
[00:34:16] The most important thing is to personalize, understand their audience, and treat them like a person, like treat them like a human. So starting just by asking if they take pitches, really, truly reading their Substacks, truly reading the content to see do they do bare views? Do they– Are, are they only doing hard great views? or are they larger trend pieces?
[00:34:37] Who’s their audience Because if you can show in your first note to them that you’re paying attention, that you authentically have read and considered a beat in their space, you’re much more likely to at least get a response to them and open the door. A win for me is not necessarily a piece of coverage.
[00:34:55] Obviously, that’s the ultimate goal. That is the outcome I’ll start your door. But honestly, a big win for me [00:35:00] is a reporter assigning to me and starting a back and forth, starting a dialogue. It doesn’t even have to be my teammates that gets the coverage, but if I’ve got a reporter to engage with media, like, “Yeah, these are the topics I’m interested in right now.
[00:35:11] These are the types of sources I’m looking for,” And I open it up to the agency to see if someone else is a fit for it. I won’t just try and force my client into a space that doesn’t fit. And so that’s the thing for Substack is it’s for basically any other publication. But I think Substack supports particularly true because they’re so personal.
[00:35:28] These are individuals who created their own, um, you know, space on this platform for topics that they as a pop out. They’re not working for an editor or a publisher or an owner. It’s just them. So it’s even more personal than anything else that a reporter would write because they are the absolute, you know, stakeholder of all content in that-
[00:35:51] platform
[00:35:51] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah. And, and they’re subscribers. So it’s like it might be a small subscriber base, but if you are subscribing it’s m- you know, much like a podcast, is [00:36:00] they are an opted-in, interested audience, which is ultimately what you want. It’s fine if you have a quote in a Wall Street Journal piece that like, of all the potential eyeballs, the percentage of people that are actually in your target audience is super, super small.
[00:36:17] But like, will you present, you know, do you share a Substack hit the same way that you would share a Wall Street Journal hit? Maybe not, right? They have different values, but you’re definitely getting in front of a very engaged, opted-in audience, which is ultimately what you want if you’re trying to in- influence buyers as your, as the primary, primary audience.
[00:36:36] So totally agree on that. Um, well actually this has been awesome. Is there anything that we didn’t cover that you want to make sure that we tackle today?
[00:36:44] Ashley Waters: You know, I think it’s just understanding that this is all audience-based. Also, at the end of the day, that’s always like that everywhere you will really thinking out as their first question, their first bet is thinking [00:37:00] audience first
[00:37:03] you know, because you need people looking at your business. You’re trying to reach invest audience
[00:37:06] media is truly the best option. But if you’re trying to reach, you know, customers and you build this supply chain, then maybe supply chain guide is your best audience. And like, I, I just want people to take that as their perception, that as their approach when they think about. And also just, you know, being engaged in the process almost like when, event you drive engagement for your support, respond their own channels on their LinkedIn, some things like that, like you’re co-CEOr, you’re commenting, you’re participating in the conversation, that goes a long way, still. reporters are people, and this is their job. So show me that like you’re excited about it, you appreciate that, you know, the time that you spent, whether it’s the sunset of podcast, broadcast, regional, trade, where. that also goes a long way, because most of The ecosystem within media is [00:38:00] relatively small.
[00:38:00] I’ve seen reporters hop around in like five or six different outlets and platforms in like my time working in the space. So you always, see, always want to maintain those good relationships, too. But that’s like data thing. Think audience first and have that be your driving force But you’re tr- really think about like what makes the most sense and where do I-
[00:38:19] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah, totally agree. And, um, when we have prospects ask us or new clients ask us, like, “What makes a client go from, like, good to great?” Our number one thing is have a say yes mindset.
[00:38:32] Because, like, what you traditionally feel like, “Me? I don’t know. I don’t know.” Like, trust us. In the clients that our, our programs that run the best are the ones where the clients are open to every opportunity, and they typically have multiple spokespeople because they’re able to take more…
[00:38:44] You know, it’s not like a CEO’s gonna just fill his calendar only with, you know, PR opportunities. But having a say yes mindset is key to having a good relationship with your firm and also ensuring that you’re getting in front of your audiences everywhere that they are. Um, so keep that in [00:39:00] mind if you are managing a PR firm.
[00:39:01] Say yes,
[00:39:02] people.
[00:39:03] Ashley Waters: what? Say what? And I think if I– the final, final thing I would leave with is also that like earned media, hierarchy was actually becoming more valuable
[00:39:11] not less valuable. But what counts as earned media and how we measure it is changing. So understanding that, leaning into it, like being flexible with it, evolving alongside it is
[00:39:22] really gonna make ABX a success
[00:39:25] Lindsey Groepper: Well, Ashley, I end every episode the same way, which is I ask my guests if they have a signature or favorite toast to send us out
[00:39:33] Ashley Waters: Oh. Oh my gosh, I do care for this. Um,
[00:39:36] Lindsey Groepper: So why I didn’t put it on there? I never put it on there
[00:39:40] Ashley Waters: Lizzie, oh my gosh. I, um, I f- lay– I let you down. This is so disappointing. Um, you know what? I’m going to Italy in a couple of, uh, weeks, so I’ll just say so
[00:39:50] Lindsey Groepper: Love it. Salud. Thanks so much for joining me
[00:39:54] Ashley Waters: Cheers. Thank you for having me
[00:39:56] Thanks again to Ashley for joining me on SaaS Half Full. I really [00:40:00] enjoyed that conversation.
[00:40:01] This topic is near and dear to my heart. It’s something that we’re talking about with prospective clients and current clients all the time. Be super interesting to revisit this conversation 12 months from now and see where the earned media landscape sits. We always appreciate the listen, and until next time, bottoms up