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Zen Media's

Comprehensive Marketing Playbook Checklist

Want to level up your marketing strategy? Steal this checklist and use it to assess your brand from top to bottom. This checklist is broken into two sections: Audit and Execute.

Once you have a full understanding of everything you’re already doing, how your brand is positioned, and what your competitors are doing, you can create actionable strategies to execute.

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The Ultimate B2B Marketing and PR Glossary

With developments in the marketing and PR industries happening every day, there seems to be new jargon popping up everywhere we look, like “Metaverse,” “share of voice,” and more acronyms than we know what to do with.

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Explore the latest in B2B PR and marketing

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Our clients are smart, thoughtful, & forward-thinking.

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Day 5: PR-Enabled Sales: 5 Steps to Go From Credibility to Close

Show me the money! 

“Ok, Shama, I feel like I can go toe to toe with anyone in PR now and I’ve learned a ton, but how do I connect the dots to sales…new business logos…more customers…we gotta land and expand…ya know, business results?” 

I am psychic. I know. (Well, only partially. I have ended up as a conduit in the past for certain messages…but I’ll tell you that story another day!)

You now understand what PR is, how it works, and even that you need a distribution plan to go with it! What’s missing is a link between all that and actual sales.

If I tell you that earned media is a long game, I won’t be the first. 

What I will tell you is that it’s all in HOW YOU USE PR. Specifically, how you tie your earned media wins into your sales process.

And, even more specifically, how you tie them into each level in your funnel.

Here’s how to make it happen, step by step:

Step 1 – Establish Credibility (Relevance)

  • Identify your target buyers’ key pain points, challenges, and aspirations through customer research, interviews, and analysis of industry trends.
  • Create a content calendar that maps out the specific topics, formats, and channels you’ll use to address these buyer needs and showcase your expertise.
  • Develop a mix of content assets, such as blog posts, whitepapers, research reports, and webinars, that provide your buyers with deep insights and actionable advice.
  • Partner with respected industry publications, associations, and influencers to secure earned media placements that amplify your thought leadership and reach your target audience.
  • Leverage customer success stories, third-party validations, and awards to build social proof and demonstrate the tangible impact of your expertise.

Step 2 – Align with Sales (Relevance)

  • Schedule regular meetings with your sales team to gather insights on the most common questions, objections, and decision-making factors they encounter in conversations with buyers.
  • Map your thought leadership content and earned media coverage to specific stages of the buyer’s journey, from awareness to consideration to decision-making.
  • Create a centralized repository of sales enablement assets, such as pitch decks, product sheets, and ROI calculators, that incorporate your thought leadership messages and proof points.
  • Conduct training sessions with your sales team to teach them how to effectively use your content and media coverage in their outreach, conversations, and follow-ups with buyers.
  • Establish a feedback loop between sales and marketing to continuously gather insights and optimize your content and messaging based on real-world interactions with buyers.

Step 3 – Extend Your Distribution (Reach)

  • Develop a targeted social media strategy that promotes your thought leadership content and earned media placements to your ideal buyer personas across key channels like LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and industry-specific forums.
  • Identify and partner with influential bloggers, podcasters, and social media personalities in your industry to expand the reach of your thought leadership and tap into new audiences.
  • Invest in paid amplification tactics, such as sponsored content, social media advertising, and native advertising, to boost the visibility and engagement of your thought leadership assets.
  • Use marketing automation platforms to create and deliver personalized content experiences that guide buyers through the sales funnel and keep your brand top-of-mind.
  • Actively participate in industry events, webinars, and online communities to share your insights, build relationships with potential buyers, and establish your brand as a go-to resource.

Step 4 – Engage Your Buyers (Reach)

  • Segment your buyer database based on key criteria like industry, job title, company size, and behavior, and create tailored content journeys for each segment.
  • Use lead scoring and behavior tracking to identify the most engaged and sales-ready buyers, and prioritize these accounts for personalized outreach and follow-up.
  • Develop a lead nurturing program that delivers a steady stream of relevant, valuable content to buyers at each stage of the sales cycle, keeping them engaged and moving toward a purchase decision.
  • Equip your sales team with the tools and insights they need to have personalized, value-added conversations with buyers, such as conversation starters, objection handling guides, and case studies.
  • Continuously monitor and analyze buyer engagement data, such as email opens, content downloads, and webinar attendance, to identify the most effective tactics and optimize your approach over time.

Step 5 – Close and Measure Sales Impact (Revenue)

  • Work with your sales and revenue operations teams to define the specific metrics and KPIs you’ll use to measure the impact of your PR and thought leadership efforts on sales outcomes.
  • Implement tracking and attribution mechanisms, such as UTM parameters, marketing automation tags, and CRM integration, to tie your content and campaigns directly to pipeline and revenue.
  • Regularly report on key metrics like RFP invitations, sales cycle length, win rates, and average deal size, and analyze trends over time to understand the full impact of your efforts.
  • RFP Invitations: Monitor the number of times your brand is invited to participate in RFPs or other sales opportunities as a result of your increased credibility and visibility in the market.
  • Sales Cycle Length: Measure how your content and engagement efforts impact the time it takes for buyers to move from initial interest to final purchase.
  • Sales Velocity: Monitor how your PR and influence activities affect the speed at which deals move through the pipeline and close.
  • Win Rates: Analyze how your credibility-building and buyer engagement efforts impact the percentage of deals that result in closed business.
  • Average Deal Size: Measure how your thought leadership and earned media presence influence the size and value of the deals you close.
  • Conduct win/loss analysis and buyer interviews to gather qualitative feedback on the role your thought leadership and earned media played in their decision-making process.
  • Use these insights to continuously refine your strategy, optimize your content and tactics, and double down on the approaches that are driving the greatest sales impact.

By following this detailed, actionable approach to PR-enabled sales, you can create a powerful link between your earned media efforts and tangible revenue outcomes.

That’s because when you organize your PR-Enabled Sales approach into these three phases —Credibility (Relevance), Distribution (Reach), and Close (Revenue)—and following this step-by-step approach, you can create a focused, measurable strategy for influencing buyers and driving sales outcomes.

Remember, the key is to think holistically about how your PR and thought leadership can support and accelerate every stage of the buyer’s journey, from initial awareness to final decision-making. 

By aligning closely with your sales team, leveraging data and insights to optimize your approach, and measuring the metrics that matter most, you can demonstrate the true business value of your PR investments and drive meaningful growth for your organization.

BONUS: Here are 50 templates you and your team can (and should!) be leveraging for your sales efforts.

Today, you learned that while earned media is awesome, it can only work for you if you know how to use it.

You’ll see the best results if you are operating from this crucial intersection of PR, Content, and Social.

Also, if you have found this email course valuable, please share it! 

Here’s a ready-to-go tweet or update for you: “This course on how to connect PR to ROI by Shama Hyder at Zen Media is a must for leaders across the board. You can sign up at: zenmedia.com/5day-mba/. Thank me later.”

If you tag me, I’ll come say thank you! 

And I know I said this was a 5-day course…but I’ll have something else for you tomorrow. It’s a surprise. :) 

See you then,

Shama

Day 4: Learn How to Turn Headlines into Selling Opportunities

When a former White House administration staffer tweeted their dislike for our client’s ice cream, it created a you-know-what storm for them. 

Luckily, against the advice of many, the CEO listened when we recommended that we fight hate with…ice cream…and used an open letter to invite the White House to an ice cream social. 

Not only was the ice cream social a success, the media went wild. The client trended on Twitter (now X) for 6 days straight. 

They received more reach than 7 Super Bowl ads combined.

And there is no reason it can’t happen for you and your brand. 

Sometimes these opportunities present themselves. 

Other times, you can create them! 

Like the one time we needed to drive registrations for Capital One’s Annual YMCA Turkey-Trot. (Fun fact: Dallas has the largest Trot in the country!) We decided to see if we could win a Guinness World Record for the highest number of people in a given spot dressed up as turkeys.

It worked! We won! 

This isn’t limited to White House-level press, by the way. Here are 10 ways to capitalize on moments and turn them into sales:

  1. Showcase your expertise by providing valuable insights or commentary on trending topics or news events related to your industry.
  2. Share success stories or case studies that demonstrate how your product or service has helped customers overcome challenges or achieve their goals.
  3. Leverage user-generated content, such as testimonials or reviews, to build trust and credibility with potential customers.
  4. Create a sense of urgency by offering limited-time promotions or exclusive offers tied to specific moments or events.
  5. Use moments to highlight your unique value proposition and differentiate your brand from competitors.
  6. Develop targeted landing pages or sales funnels that align with the specific moment or opportunity you’re leveraging.
  7. Engage with your audience on social media by responding to comments, questions, and concerns in a timely and helpful manner.
  8. Host webinars or live events that provide valuable information and showcase your products or services in action.
  9. Collaborate with influencers or thought leaders in your industry to tap into their credibility and reach a wider audience.
  10. Continuously monitor and analyze your sales data to identify which moments or opportunities are driving the most conversions, and double down on those efforts.

By implementing these strategies, you can turn moments into powerful selling opportunities that build credibility, drive engagement, and ultimately boost your bottom line.

Here are some ways you can look around at what’s happening and tie it back into your brand:

Practice makes perfect. 

Also, this is where you can use the power of AI to come up with content ideas. Remember that the output will only be as good at the input. 

Bonus Video: How to Make Your Content Marketing Better with AI. (This is on LinkedIn so drop me a note when you are there!)

See you tomorrow,

Shama

P.S. We practice what we preach! Most press releases are incredibly boring, so we launched SnoozeOrNews.com—a fun, AI-based tool that actually tells you if your news is worthy…or if it’s a snooze and how to fix it.

Day 3: The One Reframe That Unlocks Strategic Visibility with Customers and Partners

When I deliver keynote speeches, I often ask the audience what they define as media. The answers usually range from traditional outlets to social platforms, such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and so on.

And this is a fair answer. All of these ARE social platforms.

However, I urge the audience to reconsider their definition of media because it’s actually something even broader. 

People are the media. 

Do you look for restaurant reviews on Yelp or TripAdvisor before you go eat someplace new?

Have you ever gotten a DM from a trusted colleague with a recommendation that saved you hours of research?

Do you belong to a WhatsApp or Slack group where you turn for resources?

These are all examples of people as media. 

This third-party credibility is incredibly important, especially if you sell to discerning audiences.

And there’s something else most people don’t know:

Social and media have split.

Here’s what you need to know about social + media and what the rise of dark social means for you….

PR does not equal traditional media. 

It isn’t…

The NY TImes

The WSJ 

<Insert any other big name publication> people get excited about 

Today, EVERYTHING is media.

Here’s what that might look like:

➡️ Niche Podcasts: The podcast every CRO or CSO or CMO (your target market) religiously listens to.

➡️ Curated Newsletters: Substack gems hold immense power over specific audiences.

➡️ Instagram Live sessions featuring collaborations with key influencers.

➡️ LinkedIn Fireside chats with your CEO and top client that can be livestreamed.

➡️ Instagram lives with influencers who actually know how to engage your audience.

➡️ TikTok accounts that creatively engage with relevant topics and trends.

➡️ Virtual conferences that attract thousands of industry professionals.

➡️ Twitch streams for live interaction, especially in tech and gaming.

➡️ Reddit AMAs (Ask Me Anything) for direct Q&A with your audience.

➡️ Pinterest boards curated around themes pertinent to your target market.

➡️ YouTube channels with great reach via search key terms

➡️ Prioritize the RIGHT type of PR to drive business outcomes. 

Here’s an example from our client files:

Challenge: Forbes was launching their very first tech-driven SaaS platform for entrepreneurs—Forbes8. They needed to not only create awareness for the new platform but also gain buy-in from top thought leaders and influencers in the B2B space. We had to provide thoughtful content and strategic amplification to drive results.

Strategy: We put our GTM Influence Model into action. We launched a one-day remote TED-talk-like summit focused on business resiliency. We recruited 12 B2B thought leaders. After presenting, the content was then broken into multiple soundbites, and speakers shared them on their respective LinkedIn profiles.

This was a triple-punch use of influencer marketing, as each influencer 1) invited their audience to hear them at the summit, 2) created content relevant to their experience, and 3) further amplified that content on LinkedIn. At the same time, we pitched the event to journalists and then did a post-pitch on key takeaways. Both rounds of pitching resulted in coverage.

Results: The influencer marketing campaign, along with the earned media and content creation, was the most successful digital marketing campaign of all time for Forbes. 

Over 1200 individuals signed up for the paid SAAS platform as a direct result of the summit and our holistic approach. 

“Zen Media knocked it out of the park for us. They pulled this entire summit and campaign off in less than two months! Seeing some of the most respected influencers talk about Forbes8 on social media was just the cherry on top.” -Tom Davis, CMO of Forbes

Just envision the success you and your organization will have when you broaden your lens around what media actually means.

I’ll explain more in tomorrow’s lesson, because this sets you up perfectly for our next topic: 

Learn How to Turn Headlines into Selling Opportunities

I’ll reveal my exact strategy for finding trends in your industry and how to approach them in clever, creative ways. 

So get ready for some fun! 

See you tomorrow,

Shama

Day 2: From Newsprint to Newsfeed: How to Make Your Credibility Count in the New Era of PR

Yesterday, I shared that my experience working with hundreds of companies has shown me there are typically two key reasons for dissatisfaction with PR results:

  1. There was a mismatch between the goal and the strategy. 
  2. Brands aren’t proactively doing anything with the placements
    they DO land.

We also addressed how to create alignment between your goal and your strategy.

Today, we will focus on the second reason: how to proactively USE the PR placements that you land.

Have you ever thought that if you could just get picked up by the New York Times or if Oprah would endorse your brand, it would change everything?

If you have, you aren’t alone.

But here’s something most people don’t know:

That strategy doesn’t work anymore. At least, not by itself.

Historically, all earned media channels provided credibility AND distribution. Landing in the New York Times, for example, provided a high dose of both. 

Even showing up in your local paper meant you could reach your target audience with the right intended message at scale.

Not anymore.

Those days are over.

These days, more people get their news from their social media feeds than directly from any major publication.

So, while landing earned media is still a badge of credibility in a world where that matters greatly, you have to provide your own channels for distribution.

This is where Zen Media’s Go-To-Market Influence Model comes in.

For example, an article trending on LinkedIn might provide greater distribution—and engagement!—than the platform where it was originally published. 

The GTM Influence Model leverages augmented workflows to create a seamless, integrated approach to PR and marketing. 

This strategy combines the power of content marketing, earned media, and social media and integrates them with sales, product, and other marketing functions. As a result, the model creates a unified, data-driven strategy for engaging and influencing buyers at every stage of their journey.

Let’s consider an example of an augmented workflow that uses earned media:

  1. Your company’s CEO is interviewed by a respected industry publication and shares insights on the latest trends and challenges in your market.
  2. Your PR team immediately notifies your content marketing team of the interview’s publication, providing a link and key takeaways.
  3. The content team creates a blog post that expands on the CEO’s insights, providing additional value and context for your target audience. They also create social media snippets and graphics to promote the blog post.
  4. Your social media team shares the blog post and the interview across your company’s social channels, targeting key decision-makers and influencers in your industry.
  5. Your marketing automation team creates a targeted email campaign featuring the interview and blog post, segmenting your database to reach the most relevant prospects and customers.
  6. Your sales team receives an alert about the interview and blog post, along with a list of key accounts that have engaged with the content. They use this information to initiate personalized outreach and conversations.
  7. Data is collected and analyzed throughout this process to measure the impact of your earned media on website traffic, engagement, lead generation, and your sales pipeline.
  8. Based on the insights gathered, your PR, content, social media, and sales teams collaborate to refine their strategies and identify new opportunities for earned media and thought leadership.

By leveraging an augmented workflow, the GTM Influence Model ensures that earned media placements are not treated as isolated events. Instead, they are leveraged as part of an integrated, data-driven strategy for engaging and influencing buyers.

These workflows enable real-time collaboration, data sharing, and optimization across teams and channels, allowing organizations to maximize the impact of their earned media and drive measurable business results.

Bottom Line:

To effectively leverage influence at scale, you need a plan that addresses both credibility and distribution. Without a strategy that considers these two elements, even the best earned media will yield poor results.

What are some ways you can create distribution?

For example, anytime a client of ours is on a podcast, we create 60-second multimedia snippets and amplify them across social platforms. 

This creates an additional wave of targeted reach and distribution while the original content and platform provides credibility.

You can also:

Leverage Social Media Platforms: Share media coverage across all social media channels using engaging formats like stories, reels, or live sessions to discuss the coverage. Encourage followers to share the content to extend its reach.

Create Behind-the-Scenes Content: Offer a glimpse behind the scenes of the story being featured in the media. This can be done through videos, blogs, or social media posts, providing a deeper connection with the audience.

Host a Virtual Event: If the coverage is significant, hosting a virtual event or webinar to discuss the topic further can engage a broader audience and extend the conversation.  (My favorite is hosting LinkedIn Fireside chats!) 

Utilize Email Marketing: Include the media coverage in newsletters or dedicated email blasts to subscribers, adding personal commentary or insights to add value.

Partner with Influencers: Reach new audiences by collaborating with influencers

or thought leaders in your industry to discuss the media coverage on their platforms. (Yes, this works incredibly well for B2B. Even for niche audiences! See a case study on how we made it work for a brand in the construction tech space.) 

Use Visual Aids: Turn the key points of the coverage into an infographic. This visual content is shareable and can make the information more accessible. It also results in way more backlinks which is great for your SEO efforts. 

Engage in Community Forums: Share and discuss the media coverage in relevant online communities or forums. Tailor the message to fit the interests of each community to foster engagement.

Develop a Content Series: Create a series of content pieces related to the media coverage topic, including blog posts, videos, or podcasts to keep the audience engaged over time.

Implement Paid Media Strategies: Use targeted ads on social media or search engines to promote the media coverage to your ideal customer profile.

Today, you discovered that modern media no longer provides the double whammy of credibility and distribution, that consumption IS engagement, and that content moves at the speed of your feed. WHEW!

Is this a TL;DR MBA or what?

Next, we’ll explore the one crucial reframe you need to secure strategic visibility with customers and partners. It’s time to learn what “the media” actually is. 

If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will.

See you tomorrow,

Shama

P.S. – If you are finding this valuable so far, will you please hit reply and let me know? It would mean the late night hours and sweat and blood all paid off. Thank you!