Marketing Aspects spoke with David Lomas, CEO of M3 Media Group, about why paid placement can offer PR agencies considerably more value than simply guaranteeing publication.
“We receive hundreds of approaches from PR agencies and brands every month – all wanting their clients to be featured across one of our magazines and quite regularly the response when we explain our model is: ‘We’re not doing paid placement at the moment.’
“I always find the words ‘at the moment’ interesting.”
David Lomas
M3 Media Group operates a deliberately advertising-free publishing model. “We don’t want readers being continually distracted by adverts. We want them concentrating on the people, ideas and expertise within the articles. Consequently, our revenue has to come from either writing, editing or publishing content.”
For PR agencies, David believes this creates an opportunity that is sometimes misunderstood.
“When an agency wins a new client, there is naturally pressure to demonstrate results. Yet every journalist or editor must receive thousands of approaches. However good the PR agency might be, these numbers mean that nobody can guarantee any particular piece of editorial coverage.”
“But, we can.”
The PR agency can select the appropriate M3 Media publication, and know that it will be published.
But David suggests that agencies may perhaps reconsider who actually pays for it.
“Paid placement doesn’t necessarily have to appear as an additional client expense. Why couldn’t an agency occasionally absorb the publication cost within its own operating budget?
“If £1,000 is being spent servicing a client, perhaps allocating a mere £85 occasionally to guarantee a strong piece of published coverage can help balance the agency’s overall performance. It creates another measurable result and potentially helps with client retention.”
There is another dimension too.
“We use thought-leadership questions as headlines and teach clients how to use their published articles to start conversations with prospects. Suddenly, the article isn’t merely PR coverage. It becomes something the client’s salespeople can send to a prospect and say: ‘We were recently interviewed about this very issue. I’d be interested in your view.’
“That can open a completely different conversation – and critically connect the client’s marketing output with their Sales function.
“So perhaps the question for PR agencies isn’t simply, ‘Do we pay for placement?’
“It might be: ‘When could strategically paid-for published content make us more valuable to our client?’”
