PESO Model: How to Effectively Distribute New Content

Intro

When new content is created, 20% of the work is done. The rest is continuous distribution. The PESO model, which lists and describes the communication channels, can help you with this.

Content Shock: Too much Content to consume

The exponentially growing amounts of content are encountering a limited human capacity to consume it. There is far more content than humanity can consume. Attention becomes a valuable commodity. This phenomenon is called “content shock”.

The problem here is not just the information overload, more stringent filtering of information by consumers and increasing demands on content quality - but also the economic impact on businesses.

If a brand invests in content creation but no one consumes its content, it's a guaranteed loss. Brands these days can’t rely on creating quality content and that people will come on their own. The Internet is full of high-quality content that no one has ever seen.

Nowadays it is essential to distribute content purposefully and reach the target group with it. Distribution is crucial. Success does not come with the number of articles and videos created, but with the number of users who read and watch the content.

PESO Model: Reach your target group with your content

There are many ways to distribute and communicate content to your target audience. Decision making is made easier by the so-called PESO model (also known as OSEP) which divides distribution channels into paid, earned, shared and owned.

Thanks to the PESO model, marketing experts can think in advance about their ways of communication in advance and avoid the common mistake of not distributing the content created. That's why it is often used as part of the content strategy.

The PESO model has the shape of a four-leaf. Maybe that's why it's said to bring good luck to marketers.

Paid channels

Paid channels via direct purchase in the media and from influencers or programmatically via advertising systems such as Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Meta Ads, LinkedIn, Amazon, Outbrain recommendation widgets and co, represent paid content distribution.

If the brand pays for paid distribution of high-quality content on third-party channels, it's called native advertising. It offers all the benefits of traditional advertising - fast results, scalability and predictability - but at the same time is neither intrusive nor aggressive.

The pros and cons

The advantage of paid channels is scalability, predictability and cost-effectiveness. The reach or volume can be increased quickly and the advertiser has detailed metrics that enable success to be measured and optimised.

The disadvantage is that the advertiser only gets as many visitors or other outcomes as how much he pays for and online advertising prices rise every year.

Earned channels

Earned channels are all media outputs that the brand “earns” and does not pay for. The brand does not pay for visibility and mentions directly, but attracts attention or creates such good content or campaigns that it gains attention.

This happens especially when the product, service or brand is so popular that the topic is of interest to the media or people search for it themselves.

The most popular earned channel is Google Organic Search - followed by unpaid backlinks, guest blogging, organic reach on social media, bookmarking websites, mentions in the media and on blogs.

This category also includes relationships with influencers and PR services - press conferences, exhibitions and events to which journalists are invited in the hope that it will be an interesting topic for them to write an article and they will report on it for free.

Pros and cons

A huge plus of unpaid channels can be cheap traffic and therefore highest sales margins. Although paid channels deliver fast, scalable results, advertising costs increase acquisition costs and reduce margins.

Weaknesses of earned channels include instability, lower scalability, unpredictability and lack of transparency. After updating the algorithms, there may be significant changes in positions in SERP and an inevitable drop in traffic by tens of percent. It is too unstable a channel for e-commerce companies to be their main channel and management therefore prefers paid channels by default.

Shared channels

Shared channels represent voluntary online sharing of content or (online) word-of-mouth. The brand doesn't pay for sharing. Information is distributed in person, via discussion forums, WhatsApp, Messenger, Hashtags or by sharing on social networks.

Unpaid shares are extremely persuasive. Consumers are sceptical of advertising and brands, but listen to recommendations from friends, acquaintances and other customers because distributing their experience does not provide them with any financial benefit.

The disadvantages of shared channels are limited reach, difficult and indirect traffic acquisition, and difficult or almost impossible scalability.

Brands can support shared channels by creating high-quality content and making it easier to share.

News servers have share buttons available. Online stores encourage customers to brag about their purchase after a successful payment. Restaurants and hotels ask customers to leave a good review after a positive experience.

Owned channels

Owned channels are media that a brand owns or controls. An example of an own online channel is mainly direct traffic, followed by email databases, traffic via bookmarks, controlled platforms (e.g. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram), notifications, own app. For this reason, this channel is sometimes referred to as “controlled media”.

Websites with the highest direct traffic are media because they produce high-quality content over a long period of time and the reader is the centre of their interest.

Degree of control

Owned media varies in the level of control and risk. Own channels with a lower level of control are business and private social media profiles such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.

The advertiser has the highest level of control over its own email database, but this also includes direct data traffic and notifications.

Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, considers email subscribers to be the most important and only truly proprietary channel: “Email subscription is the most important type of relationship you can have with your subscriber, simply because we can control that connection the most.”

Strengths and weaknesses of owned channels

The strengths of own channels are low risk, access to data and that the channel is an asset that can increase in value. Your own channel cannot be switched off if the provider's rules change, it is resistant to algorithm changes and traffic does not have to be purchased expensively.

The disadvantages of own channels are slower development, poorer ROI measurability and the need to use other channels to attract the audience.

Risks associated with non-owned channels

Other types of channels are easier to build, but at the same time the brand is dependent on them and vulnerable. Let’s look at two examples from the world of earned channels.

Google is constantly rolling out new updates to its search algorithms. In January 2020, it introduced the core update, which drastically reduced traffic on many websites. Moz.com reported that Orbitz.com lost 57% and Reddit.com lost 28% of their unpaid visitors within three days.

In August 2023, Google announced that it would reduce HowTo and FAQ rich snippets in SERP. However, the FAQ rich snippets often brought the most clicks. This is why, after years of optimization, websites and search engine optimizers have lost a significant source of organic traffic in just a few days.

Another example from the paid world: From November 1, 2020, Google Ads charged new fees for some countries: Turkey and Austria 5% and Great Britain 2%. The fees are in addition to the normal cost per impression and advertisers in these countries suddenly have to pay noticeably more.

Another example of dependence on a third-party platform from a different area is Shopify Reunite - an update that added important functionalities to the Shopify e-shop solution, such as instalment purchase, new page builder, multicurrency and more. Shopify has sunk the development companies that developed apps with these functionalities and offered them in the Shopify App Store.

Such situations can be avoided by building your owned channels and diversifying channels and platforms.

The following table summarises the advantages and disadvantages of each channel.

Distribution reduces the price per reader

	Scenario 1: without distribution	Scenario 2: with distribution
Creation costs	250 €	250 €
Distribution costs (time, paid, subscriptions etc.)	–	250 €
Total costs	250 €	500 €
Number of visitors	250	875
Price per visitor	1 €	0,57€ -43%

Hand in hand with the content distribution are the costs per reader decreasing. Effectiveness = total cost of content ÷ number of readers. The formula illustrates increasing the overall effectiveness of content marketing through distribution.

The table shows a comparison of the results without and with the PESO model. With targeted content distribution, an increase in overall effectiveness of 43% can be seen. That's why it's worth using different channels and distributing the content everywhere.

The history of the PESO model

One of the first mentions of the PESO model is in the book “Spin Sucks” by Gini Dietrich, published in 2014. In this book, PR expert Dietrich has created a solid framework for implementing and accepting the model, which is widely used in the PR industry today. This diagram provides a general overview of how each channel works individually and how they create synergies together.

“The PESO model allows communicators to use any of the four media types – and to start communicating correctly with the first touch of a potential customer,” says Dietrich.

This public relations model has gradually expanded from PR to other areas of marketing and is now widely used in the creation of content marketing strategies and communication plans.

Making it all come together

There are so many ways to rethink your media placement using the PESO model. All four media strategies work best together.

Experience has shown that the combination of publishing on owned media and paid distribution is powerful. However, it is appropriate to distribute the content through all available channels and gain benefits of social sharing and online word-of-mouth.