The media landscape has been changing for years, but one shift in particular that should have every franchise marketer’s attention is that the coverage a brand can’t buy is becoming more valuable.
Earned media has always helped build credibility. A reporter or editor choosing to tell a brand’s story carries a different kind of weight than a message the brand paid to place. But that credibility can now extend well beyond the publication and its immediate audience.
As consumers and prospective franchise owners turn to AI platforms to research brands, ask questions and compare opportunities, credible third-party content can help shape what they find.
That puts even more value on earning the right coverage and having a story worth telling in the first place.
Start With the Story, Not the Brand
There’s a pitch I often think about whenever a client asks why a brand announcement isn’t landing with reporters.
A restoration franchise owner I worked with traveled across state lines to help a Florida community after not one, but two hurricanes. There was no business angle driving his actions. He was just looking after a community in need first and his business second. So that’s the story we told.
We focused on the franchisee, his team and their commitment to helping people in crisis. We didn’t need to manufacture a bigger brand story around it. What he was doing and why he was doing it was compelling enough. That pitch ultimately led to a byline in Franchising World.
I think that story is the perfect example of what matters today. The coverage doesn’t just put the brand’s name in front of an audience at one moment in time. It creates a credible, third-party story that can continue to represent what the brand and its franchisees stand for long after the article is published.
Credibility Can Travel Further
The fundamental value of earned media hasn’t changed. A reporter or editor decided the story was worth telling rather than the brand paying to place it. What’s changing is how far that credibility can travel.
An article may reach its original audience today and then surface months later as someone researches a brand through search or AI. When a prospective franchisee asks about a category or compares opportunities, credible third-party sources can become part of what informs those answers.
That matters for an industry that has always struggled to put a specific ROI calculation around PR. We may not be able to measure an earned story as cleanly as a paid campaign, but we should be thinking about its value beyond the initial placement, impressions or website traffic.
Ask “Why Now?” Before Asking “What?”
Of course, none of that matters if you can’t earn the coverage in the first place, which has gotten harder.
Newsrooms are smaller and reporters are covering more beats and producing content across more channels. They don’t have time for every announcement that hits their inbox. That’s why one of the habits I try to instill in my team is to ask “Why now?”.
A brand signing a franchise agreement for a store that may open a year from now doesn’t necessarily give a reporter a reason to write about it this week. And “we’re growing” isn’t a story. Most franchise brands are growing or at least trying to.
The story is what’s happening around that growth. Who is the person behind it? Why this market? Is there a larger trend at play? Has consumer behavior changed? Is there something happening in the community that makes the story relevant right now?
Sometimes the answer is that there isn’t a story yet. That’s okay, too. Not every announcement needs to become a pitch.
The Best Stories Come from Partnership
The good stories also rarely arrive neatly packaged in a brief. They tend to surface in conversations. Maybe a franchisee is doing something interesting in their community, there’s a new pattern the development team is seeing with prospects, or even a small update turns out to connect to a much bigger trend.
That’s why the clients who get the most out of PR tend to treat their agency as an extension of their team rather than a vendor working through a list of deliverables. They bring us into conversations early. They tell us what they’re hearing from franchisees and prospects. They share what’s happening across the business before anyone has decided whether it’s “PR-worthy.”
There are times when a client wants to pursue a story or direction that we wouldn’t necessarily recommend. My job isn’t to execute it and hope for the best. It’s to explain what we’re seeing, how I think the media will respond, and what I’d recommend doing instead. I don’t always win that argument, and that’s okay. But that kind of counsel is part of what a valuable agency partnership should provide.
What Comes Next for Earned Media
Earned media will always be less predictable than paid media. That’s also part of what makes it valuable. You can buy an ad, but you can’t buy genuine editorial interest.
Now, a strong earned story can do more than reach a publication’s audience. It can build credibility with customers and prospective franchisees, support sales and development conversations, strengthen a brand’s digital footprint, and influence how that brand shows up in AI-driven searches.
I expect that shift to bring PR further into conversations with brand, digital, and marketing teams as we all play a role in how a brand gets discovered and what people find when they go looking.
For franchise brands trying to build credibility, the question isn’t whether earned media still matters. It’s whether the stories they’re earning are the ones worth finding.
