In the world of earned media, Double Forte founder and CEO Lee Caraher emphasizes that success isn't about landing a single big story––it's about consistently building momentum over time. She explains how, by focusing on long-term goals and creating a solid communications foundation, companies can ensure that each achievement pushes them closer to sustained success, making it easier to secure those coveted media placements when the time is right.
When we ask prospective clients what success looks like in earned media, they often say things such as “a cover story in a major business publication, or, “a write up in The Wall Street Journal.” They also ask us to help them meet specific metrics such as, “Our most engaged audience - among 25-30 year old women- triples,” or, “We get invited to keynote a big conference.” Sometimes they’re looking for a new reality, as in, “Recruiting top-notch talent gets easier” or, “Our people all know exactly what we do, why we do it, and what their role is in the work.” These are end goals that different communication activities can achieve over time.
If your company is not public, doesn’t (yet) have high-profile investors and a high valuation, is a strong competitor but in a small market, hasn’t disrupted an established publicly traded leader in a category, then achieving these "big publication" media placement goals will take time. More importantly, checking them off as complete won’t do your company much good over the long term if you aren’t building a solid communications and reputation foundation for media placements to "stand" on.
Instead, we counsel our clients to focus on creating a flywheel that will get them to the goal over time while building a solid foundation that will sustain positive results for a long time. We recommend they keep their sights set on the long-term goal and build toward it so that when they can meet a reporter's requirements, the flywheel is in motion and can help bring a great story across the line.
How the flywheel works, and more importantly, how to create it, is the subject of our latest POV. You can download it here. Or, watch the video here.
