Most manufacturers chase publicity. They pour cash into advertisements and PR, hoping to purchase consideration. And, it really works when you’ve got deep pockets. However in case you don’t?
Then, you’ve received a bunch of techniques to achieve earned media worth with out paying for each point out. Right here’s the place your complete crew will make it easier to acquire EMV.
On this article, I’ll break down what EMV is, why EMV isn’t simply your advertising and marketing crew’s concern, easy methods to calculate EMV to show its impression, and real-world examples of manufacturers doing it proper.
Desk of Contents
What’s earned media worth?
Earned media worth (EMV) is the estimated greenback price of all of the publicity your model will get — with out paying for advertisements. It’s free exposure from media coverage, social media mentions, shares, and good old style word-of-mouth.
EMV is often calculated by evaluating it to the price of operating advertisements with the identical attain and impression. In different phrases, how a lot would it’s a must to spend on promoting to get the identical degree of consideration?
Channels That Drive Earned Media Worth
- Public relations (PR): Getting your model featured in information articles, magazines, TV, or radio by way of strategic outreach — without spending a dime.
- Social media mentions and shares: When individuals speak about your model on platforms like Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, or Fb.
- Influencer advertising and marketing: When influencers, bloggers, or vloggers organically hype up your product/service to their viewers.
- Phrase-of-mouth: The strongest advertising and marketing software — individuals recommending your model to pals, household, enterprise companions, teammates, and many others.
- UGC: Buyer evaluations, unboxing movies, testimonials, and any content material created by actual customers.
- Visitor running a blog and podcasts: Being invited to share your experience on exterior platforms to faucet into new audiences.
- Awards and recognitions: Business accolades that improve your model’s credibility and authority.
Briefly, EMV occurs when individuals speak about your model as a result of they need to — not since you paid them. It’s actual affect, not rented house.
Why ought to your crew know your earned media worth?
Earned media isn’t only a vainness metric. It’s an indicator of brand name belief, buyer engagement, and advertising and marketing effectiveness.
Right here’s why your crew wants to trace and perceive it.
Builds model authority and belief.
Earned media builds the strongest belief between a model and its viewers. When a model’s message comes from a 3rd get together, it immediately feels extra credible.
Costco is a great example of an organization that makes essentially the most of earned media. Its high-quality Signature Choose merchandise and dedication to its $1.50 hot dog combo have bred model loyalty. You could have heard of the Costco guys, a father-and-son duo that evaluations the corporate’s merchandise. My private favourite is the band The By no means Ending Fall’s sequence, “Can It Kirkland?” In every video, they examine name-brand and Coscto-brand alcohol.
@neverendingfall Can it Kirkland? ONE LAST TIME 🥺 LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. Thanks for all the laughs 🥹 (come find us on the gram) ❤️#costco #kirkland #fyp #xyzbca #canitkirkland
Truly, Costco doesn’t spend on promoting. As an alternative, the corporate depends closely on earned media and phrase of mouth, resulting in a model worth of $48.3 billion in 2024.
Boosts visibility and referrals.
Due to EMV, your model spreads naturally by way of shares, natural mentions, and referrals. For example, 14.28% of Coca-Cola’s traffic comes from referrals only.
In reality, Fb alone accounts for 51.23% of Coca-Cola’s whole social media referrals, highlighting the impression of natural attain on model visibility.
However how does it work for smaller manufacturers?
I talked to Mia Jozipović, content material and advertising and marketing strategist for Siterice.hr. She just lately pulled off a terrific PR marketing campaign and shares her suggestions:
“We ran a research utilizing information from our platform on the common prices of childcare, pet care, and cleansing companies in Croatia for 2025. I despatched the information to media shops I believed would discover it attention-grabbing, and it led to tons of PR articles — fully free,” she mentioned.
“For instance, Net.hr and Lider Media — a few of Croatia’s greatest websites gave us free media protection. Did we deserve it? Completely! I gave them one thing juicy they merely couldn’t resist.”
This case means your analysts or coders must roll up their sleeves and help advertising and marketing of us in getting ready analysis. Most significantly, they’ve to know the “why” and its enterprise impression.
Improves technique and finances allocation.
Monitoring EMV information means understanding what’s working and the place to regulate. The fitting platforms, content material varieties, and influencers can drive critical worth, however with out a clear measurement technique, it’s straightforward to misallocate assets.
Olivia Tian, advertising and marketing and innovation supervisor at Raise 3D, an industrial 3D printing firm, shared a terrific instance of this in motion.
She informed me a couple of product launch the place they closely relied on PR and assumed media protection alone would generate conversions. Whereas they secured strong placements, engagement stalled.
Subsequent, she amplified it by way of LinkedIn thought management posts, nurtured it by way of electronic mail advertising and marketing and built-in it into gross sales enablement supplies.
This one adjustment — embedding media mentions into outbound gross sales efforts — led to a 30% improve in electronic mail response charges.
Tian wraps it up by saying:
“Do not simply chase PR wins — guarantee earned media is woven into your broader advertising and marketing and gross sales funnel for long-term impression.”
The lesson: EMV campaigns embody salespeople, too, to unfold the phrase.
The Earned Media Worth Formulation
EMV helps manufacturers put a greenback quantity on unpaid publicity. Whereas there’s no single normal system, entrepreneurs typically calculate it by estimating how a lot they’d have spent on advertisements to get the identical attain and engagement.
The fundamental EMV system is:
- Complete Impressions — Consists of views from social media, press protection, influencer mentions, and user-generated content material.
- CPM for Paid Adverts — Take a look at business benchmarks or your previous campaigns to see how a lot manufacturers usually pay per 1,000 impressions in your house.
- Multiply Impressions by CPM — Offers you an estimated greenback worth of what your earned media publicity would price if it have been paid promoting.
Different Methods to Measure EMV
Typically, you may tweak the system to make it extra correct relying on the channel and engagement metrics. Listed here are just a few different approaches:
1. Engagement-Based mostly EMV Formulation
Since impressions alone don’t present true impression, some entrepreneurs think about engagement (likes, shares, feedback) to get a extra correct worth:
- CPE (Price per Engagement) represents the common price of a like, share, or remark in paid media campaigns.
2. PR Worth Formulation
For press protection, PR groups typically use an Promoting Worth Equivalency (AVE) mannequin:
- This works effectively for conventional media (newspapers, magazines) by estimating what it could price to purchase that very same quantity of house in advert kind.
- Multiply it by a credibility issue (usually 2-5x).
3. Influencer EMV Formulation
For influencer partnerships, manufacturers often calculate EMV utilizing engagement charges and influencer pricing fashions:
- CPE (Price per Engagement) and CPV (Price per View) fluctuate by business and influencer tier.
“Our most profitable EMV marketing campaign concerned partnering with micro-influencers in our area of interest who created genuine content material showcasing our product. We calculated impression utilizing: (Estimated Promoting Worth) x (High quality Multiplier) x (Engagement Fee),” says Lisa Benson, advertising and marketing strategist at DeBella DeBall Designs.
“For instance, a put up reaching 10,000 individuals in our target market with excessive engagement could be calculated as: (Price for equal paid attain) x (1.5 for optimistic sentiment) x (engagement fee of 6%). This system helped us reveal that earned protection was delivering 3x the worth of our paid channels,” Benson mentioned.
4. UGC EMV Formulation
For user-generated content material, you may calculate EMV primarily based on engagement and attain:
Natalia Lavrenenko, UGC supervisor at Rathly, gives her strategy to calculate UGC impression and shares suggestions for result-driven campaigns.
“Excessive engagement beats excessive follower depend each time. Earlier than launching, check totally different creators with small-budget activations to see who really converts. One marketing campaign stood out by turning UGC into model momentum,” she mentioned.
“A giveaway inspired prospects to share their experiences, resulting in hundreds of natural posts. EMV was calculated utilizing: (Complete Mentions x Common CPM) + (Engagements x Worth per Interplay) = Earned Media Worth.”
Which EMV system must you use?
It will depend on your model’s targets:
For social media: Engagement-based EMV works finest.
For PR and press protection: AVE offers a strong estimate.
For influencer advertising and marketing: Use engagement + view-based EMV.
Whereas EMV isn’t an ideal science, monitoring it helps manufacturers perceive the actual impression of natural buzz. Select a system that aligns together with your technique and tweak it as you collect extra information.
Professional tip: HubSpot’s free Paid Media Template helps you observe and arrange media placements throughout channels like paid search, social media, TV, and extra. Simply calculate metrics like CPC, CPM, CPA, and ROAS, whereas analyzing efficiency to see which channels ship the perfect outcomes for your online business.
Earned Media Worth in Motion
Let’s get sensible and stroll you thru a made-up instance of an EMV marketing campaign from the very starting.
Situation: A advertising and marketing supervisor tasked to draw new gymnasium guests for an indoor mountaineering gymnasium. They should create a viral marketing campaign that will probably be lifted by professionals and newbies and native sports activities information without spending a dime.
Implementation: The gymnasium hosts a particular occasion the place a 10-year-old climber completes a difficult route meant for professionals. A spectator data the second and posts it on Instagram and TikTok, tagging the climbing gymnasium. The video positive factors:
- 1.5 million views.
- 75K likes.
- 4K shares.
- 800 feedback.
The advertising and marketing supervisor takes it to native information and a nationwide sports activities journal. They comply with put up the story without spending a dime, which triggers an avalanche of health bloggers choosing up the story — all with out the gymnasium spending a dime on advertisements.
EMV Calculations
Right here, we use the system :
EMV = (Impressions × CPM) + (Engagements × CPE)
The place:
- CPM (Price per 1,000 impressions) = $8 (business common for health advertisements)
- CPE (Price per engagement) = $0.40
Making use of the Formulation
1. Impressions Worth
(1,500,000÷1,000)×8=12,000
2. Engagement Worth
(75,000+4,000+800)×0.40=31,120
3. Complete Earned Media Worth
12,000+31,120=43,120
Because of this the ultimate EMV accounts for $43,120 price of publicity.
Why does this matter?
If the advertising and marketing supervisor selected paid advertisements to draw new leads and acquire publicity, they’d’ve wanted a major finances to succeed in the identical viewers.
And to be trustworthy, I can hardly think about the climbing gymnasium investing over $43K in paid advertisements in a single month.
3 Examples of Earned Media Worth
Now that we all know what EMV is and easy methods to calculate it, let’s try just a few manufacturers that actually know easy methods to profit from it.
1. How did the Barbie film spark natural buzz?
The advertising and marketing marketing campaign for the Barbie film, launched in 2023, grew to become a standout instance of earned media success.
Warner Bros created an immersive and catchy marketing campaign, together with the “Barbiecore” aesthetic that dominated social media platforms (TikTok and Instagram particularly).
The marketing campaign sparked natural conversations, with influencers and followers sharing their very own Barbie-inspired outfits, memes, and experiences. This led to an avalanche of free publicity throughout social media, information shops, and popular culture discussions.
Why I prefer it: The marketing campaign blended nostalgia with fashionable traits, encouraging UGC content material that prolonged its attain far past paid advertisements. It exhibits how aligning your model with cultural moments can create a large earned media impression.
2. How does Duolingo flip traits into consideration?
To comply with up on the Barbie development, I can’t skip mentioning Duolingo’s good timing with their owl mascot, who remodeled into Margot Robbie. Duolingo made a splash with a pre-film ad inspired by Barbie and a presence at a film premiere in LA:
It didn’t simply prove daring however resulted in tons of likes and feedback, with among the hottest media shops and influencers making stitches of those movies, giving Duolingo much more publicity.
In reality, Duolingo’s TikTok has turn out to be a masterclass in viral content material, constantly producing earned media. Their owl mascot, featured in humorous and relatable movies, repeatedly racks up hundreds of thousands of views and shares.
Why I prefer it: Duolingo proves that even tech manufacturers can humanize themselves by way of humor and relatability. And by leaping on traits on the proper time, they get seen by influencers and media.
3. How does Semrush amplify its occasion attain organically?
Global Marketing Day, hosted by Semrush, is a 24-hour on-line advertising and marketing convention that brings collectively high consultants from main manufacturers like Google, TikTok, Pinterest, and Vogue Enterprise.
The occasion streams reside from studios in New York, London, and Dubai, providing 48 periods on matters like search engine marketing, branding, AI, and extra.
Semrush generated social media buzz and UGC content material all through the occasion, incomes media publicity throughout totally different platforms.
The outcomes from the 2023 convention converse for themselves:
- Reached over 5 million individuals throughout all posts.
- Generated 2,700 tweets with #globalmarketingday.
- Attracted 90,000 registrants.
- Secured 55,000+ leads.
Why I prefer it: Once you invite consultants from totally different firms, you’re just about assured a number of shares from their groups and connections. A snowball impact — extra shares, much less effort. Phrase of mouth takes over.
Additionally, by inviting SMEs, Semrush exhibits they’re not simply throwing an occasion, they’re solidifying their spot as a pacesetter in digital advertising and marketing training.
Don’t Purchase Consideration — Earn It
Is it simpler to get a point out once you pay? Sure. However is it extra worthwhile? No.
Paid mentions can convey fast outcomes or flop, however the actual worth lies in EMV. Each model ought to purpose for a long-term sport — nice content material and sensible promotion on their very own finish to make the media or an influencer discover them.
Get this stuff proper, media consideration comes naturally.
Monitor the worth of natural mentions. Use AI to trace model mentions, and always remember to thank the media that featured you.
Construct these relationships. Earn that spotlight, nurture it, and watch it compound.
