News | 3/10/2016

What is PESO and how does it affect me?

Posted by James Dempster

The key to any good marketing or PR is obviously communication. Good communication is the marketers’ end game, no matter what sector you’re in; no marketing message will get the attention it deserves or deliver a clear message without communication. With this in mind, it’s really important to follow some kind of communication model that will spread your message far and wide. That’s what our clients pay us to do!

Without further ado, we’d like to demystify another digital marketing buzzword –

PESO.

Contrary to popular belief, PESO does not just refer to Mexican currency. The PESO model is really just a chain of marketing media; a way of gaining maximum coverage in order to attract as much of your target audience’s attention as possible. Each letter in the PESO abbreviation stands for the different media used in each part of the chain.

PESO stands for Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned.

First up is paid media. This refers to things like adverts, sponsored blog posts and anything you pay for on social media. Whilst this might reach a wide audience that might get missed through other mediums, it’s really important to truly get to grips with your target audience if you want to see any ROI. Don’t throw away your funds on people who might not respond to your message, invest in those who will be interested in what you have to say.

Earned media is content that establishes your credibility as a business.

Above anything else, this refers to coverage by the mainstream media. This part of the model requires you to communicate with journalists and editors in order to ensure your message gets published. In order to do this, it’s vital you create quality content which will make the publication look good and will prove useful to readers. It’s all about the target audience, though. Like paid media, ensure you know your target audience back to front and then decide which medium will suit them best.

Sharing is caring; shared media refers to anything you post on social media sites or bookmarking sites like Reddit and Tumblr. Again, you need to make sure that these posts are providing something valuable to your target audience. You care about them.

Owned media is all yours. This can be things like blog posts, webinars or any brand journalism created by your business. Because you have free rein over this, what you say goes, so be as creative as you like. Just make sure everything you publish to your own site or publication is still useful and relevant (much like this handy guide).

Now you know exactly what PESO is there’s no reason you shouldn’t get out there and try it for yourself. If you find yourself stuck, however, here at Cobb Digital, we’re the marketing experts. Give us a call, ping us an email or just pop in for a coffee; we’d be happy to see how we can help you.