Dustin Siggins is the founder of Proven Media Solutions. He helps clients accomplish their media and branding goals by intentionally placing their brands in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and many other targeted outlets.

In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Dustin explains what “earned media” is and how salespeople can use it to get in front of their buyers and increase their thought leadership.

Resources:

Dustin on LinkedIn

@DustinSiggins

ProvenMediaSolutions.net

Transcript

Will Barron:

Coming up on today’s episode of the Salesman Podcast.

 

Dustin Siggins:

Earned media is when you get your name in the press or your company’s name in the press. If you see the Washington Post, there’s an op-ed by someone, some thought leader like Mark Cuban. That’s earned media.

 

Dustin Siggins:

50 per cent of consumers increase their trust in your brand after reading something positive. 44 per cent will lose trust when they read something negative, and Bospar, which is in the technology space, did a national poll, found that 19 per cent of consumers will visit your website after seeing you mentioned once in the press.

 

Will Barron:

Hello, sales nation. My name is Will Barron, and I’m the host of the Salesman Podcast, the world’s most downloaded podcast on B to B sales. On today’s episode, we have the legend that is Dustin Siggins. He is CEO over at Proven Media Solutions, and you can find him over at provenmediasolutions.net. On today’s episode, we’re getting into earned media. What it is and how you can use it to take your sales career to the next level, how you can use it to differentiate yourself from other salespeople by building a halter of trust in the media both big and small. We’ll get into all this. Everything we talk about, as always, is in the show notes of this episode over at salesman.org. With all of that said, let’s jump right into it.

 

What is Earned Media? · [01:20] 

 

Will Barron:

New topic, interesting topic for the audience. We’ll look at how to leverage earned media and use this to accelerate sales and our thought leadership personal brand, and all that good stuff. But let’s start at the very beginning here for anyone who isn’t familiar with this term because [inaudible 00:01:31] sales people and sales leaders as opposed to I guess marketers and PR. What does earned media actually mean?

 

“Earned media is when you get your name in the press or your company’s name in the press. If you see the Washington Post, there’s an op-ed by some thought leader like Mark Cuban, that’s earned media” – Dustin Siggins · [01:38] 

 

Dustin Siggins:

Earned media is when you get your name in the press or your company’s name in the press. If you see the Washington Post, there’s an op-ed by some thought leader like Mark Cuban. That’s earned media, that op-ed. Or an interview if you do with a local press, that’s earned media. Earned media is getting into the newspaper, on a radio interview, a podcast interview, anything along those lines.

 

The Definition of Press in this Current Day and Age · [02:10]

 

Will Barron:

The follow up from that is, and I don’t know if there’s even a definition for this anymore, but what does the press mean? Because 20 years ago it’d be Wall Street Times best ...