What is a PR Placement?
In the world of public relations, one term that you'll frequently come across is "PR placement." But what exactly does it mean?
What is a PR Placement?
To get a PR placement means to get you or your company, brand, product, or service referenced by a media outlet, such as a newspaper, magazine, online publication, blog, podcast, TV show, or radio program.
If you hire a PR firm and they pitch a writer at Forbes who drops your name in an article, that’s a PR placement.
If you pay a podcast PR service to get you interviewed on a podcast and they get you on a show, that’s a PR placement.
If your PR firm gets your product mentioned on a news show, that’s a PR placement.
WHAT ISN’T A PR PLACEMENT?
What if a journalist happens to find your product on Amazon, all by themselves, and writes about it? Is that a PR placement?
What if Elon Musk is in the news, and a journalist talks about him on a news show, is that a PR placement?
Well, that’s where it gets a little dicey to define the word. Typically, when we say “placement” we’re talking about trying to get publicity and succeeding through a process of pitching, following up, and actively participating in the media exposure, so with regards to the last two questions the answers would be “no” and “no,” respectively.
Here’s a tricky one—is it a placement if your PR firm pitches Journalist A, who writes an article about you, but then Journalist B reads the article by Journalist A, and Journalist B writes an article on their own? What if you don’t know that Journalist B wrote their article because of the article by Journalist A?
There are at least four reasonable answers to that scenario, including “Yes,” “No,” “I don’t know,” and “Whatever.”
HOW DO I GET PR PLACEMENTS?
Rather than quibble over what is or what isn’t a PR placement, the better question to ask is “How do I get PR placements of any and all sorts, and as many as possible?”
There are three primary ways to get positive PR:
Do your own PR by pitching the media. This involves building relationships with journalists and learning how to tell your story effectively. Find more tips on how to do your own PR in this blog post.
Hire a PR firm to pitch the media for you.
Do your own PR by doing attention-getting things. You could say this is a subset of #1, it’s just a different form of pitching. Elon Musk is a master of this.
TWO KINDS OF PR PLACEMENTS
It’s worth noting that not all PR placements are equal. There are two primary kinds of PR placements:
Mentions
Features
An example of a mention is when a journalist writes an article on a particular topic and quotes you in the article as an expert on that topic. You were “mentioned” in the article, but the article is not all about you.
A feature is when you are the primary subject of an article. If your name is Jenny Smith and the headline reads, “How Jenny Smith Built Her Business Empire” then that’s a feature article. Other types of feature articles might focus on your business, or your product or service. These are the kinds of articles people print out and get framed to hang up on their office wall.
More on PR mentions and features in this blog post.
Of course, you could also say there are two other types of PR placements, good ones and bad ones, but we always assume we’re talking about good ones.
HOW PR FIRMS GET PLACEMENTS for clients
PR firms traffic in relationships. If you want to get your own PR placements, it’s easy if you know a journalist and can get them on the phone and ask for a favor. However, most people don’t have those relationships. PR professionals make it their business to build those relationships, which they then leverage to benefit both their clients and the journalists. PR professionals are middlemen…middlepersons?
Most PR firms work on a retainer, a monthly fee, and they then craft strategies and pitches and send them out to journalists, hoping to hook some stories. Regardless of what you get, you pay the monthly fee.
At Canvas, we’re a little different. We charge a flat fee, per article, and if you don’t get the article then you don’t pay (we actually take payment upfront, but then offer a money back guarantee if we don’t get the placement within 90 days).
If you’d like to know more, check out our pricing list.
