Bob Sperber, Editor, Branded Content

As a marketer serving engineers and technical pros, you use B2B media outlets to help your brand gain awareness. Beyond paid advertising and occasional coverage of your news releases, you may be missing out on additional, significant opportunities to reach more buyers and decision-makers with editorial coverage.

Are you taking advantage of these valuable opportunities? Read on to learn how.

How is “earned” different from paid content?
First, let’s review the similar but different and complementary roles of “paid” and “earned” content.

Paid media placements extend your audience reach to build your brand awareness, reputation, credibility, and expertise with technical education and thought leadership. Unlike traditional display ads, paid or sponsored content typically includes some form of promotion and associated metrics. This can range from newsletter promotions and basic audience metrics for sponsored articles to dedicated campaigns and associated leads for white papers, eBooks, and webinars. Paid content is always labeled to ensure audiences are aware that it is paid, or sponsored.

Earned editorial coverage, from quotes to full articles, can provide many of the benefits of paid content in terms of brand-building power. It’s free of charge, if published, and independent of sponsorship and advertising programs. For starters, such coverage — whether you contribute a full story or a few quotes — lends credibility by virtue of being covered by a respected media outlet’s editorial staff.

There are some key differences that apply to earned editorial, too. First, the editor is the arbiter of what’s covered. And while you don’t “own” what gets published, you’re free to share it via links from your website, newsletters, social posts, and other channels. Also, earned placements don’t include paid promotions.

As smart marketers know, there’s great value in taking advantage of both earned and paid media placements.

How to come up with story ideas
Are you ready to pitch a story? You may already be sitting on some great ideas and not even know it. The key to a good story idea is to see it through the audience’s eyes.

In deciding what content to run, B2B editors seek ideas that are educational, instructional, or newsworthy. By “newsworthy,” it can even be a new or unique way to think about or use an existing technology. It doesn’t have to be a secret. That said, if you can share unique or important technical insights, your story just might become extremely popular and lead to great visibility.

If you need help coming up with a good idea, consider these story starters:

• Problem-solving or how-to tutorials on relevant topics
• Commentary expressing views on a challenge or controversial topic
• New insights to correct misconceptions or illuminate overlooked solutions
• Tips and tricks for better, cheaper, or more efficient outcomes
• Blog posts, presentations, webinar highlights that advance education
• Technical insights behind current events that general news media can’t or won’t cover
• Case studies, success stories, use cases, or customer interviews

How to pitch your story

Once you have a story idea, it’s easy to pitch it to an editor by writing a brief description (one or two paragraphs) summarizing the focus and why it matters to the audience. Include a description of key technical facts or supporting information (perhaps with a link or two to help make the point). Finally, tell us why the story matters to our audience of engineers and industry professionals and how it will benefit them.

You may wish to submit a story, or not; it’s your idea that counts first and foremost. While editors may accept content submissions from guest contributors, they also interview qualified sources for stories and, in some cases, publish Q&A articles. Beyond written articles, your great ideas may lead to multimedia content opportunities as well.

Make the pitch! Email the appropriate Informa Markets – Engineering editor today with your ideas for editorial consideration:

• Battery Technology, Editor-in-Chief, Michael Anderson
• Design News, Editor, Daphne Allen
• MD+DI, Editor, Omar Ford
• PlasticsToday, Editor, Norbert Sparrow
• Powder & Bulk Solids, Editor, Kevin Cronin
• Packaging Digest, Executive Editor, Lisa Pierce