Dustin Siggins is founder of Proven Media Solutions.
For years, PR pros have been debating whether paywalled media matters in the LLM era. My answer has always been simple: if your target audiences trust it, go for it.
After a recent conversation with fellow PR experts, I’m even more confident of that. Here are five reasons I’m standing by paywalled media — three drawing from indispensable PR principles and two to help us find our footing amid the coming relationships between paywalls and AI.
- You’re still reaching the right people
Who’s on the other side of a paywall? A person in your target audience whom you want to take a specific action – buy something, vote a certain way, or influence your constituency.
And whether it’s local media, The Gray Lady, or independent journalists, many of these reach what Katie Suiters, lead media trainer at Brighton Media, called “hyper-targeted audiences that absolutely shouldn’t be overlooked.”
After all, local elected officials read the regional paper. Company executives with local and regional customers read the business journal. Industry buyers read the trade publication. “I always tell clients: If you’ve identified a specific publication’s consumer as your audience and there’s a real business objective behind an opportunity, treat it like any other high-stakes interview,” said Suiters. “Paywalled media extends so far beyond legacy papers.”
- Most paywalls aren’t locked down
Beyond that, most paywalled outlets aren’t fully locked down. Many allow several free articles per month. Others let subscribers share content via gift links. Some content gets accessed through social sharing. So even the targets who can’t be bothered to pay will still get a taste.
And then there are the people who want the whole drink for free. Paywalled outlets routinely syndicate to MSN, AOL, Yahoo News, and similar open platforms. A piece behind a subscription wall on Tuesday can be freely readable across the internet by Wednesday — indexed, searchable, and visible to anyone, without the client having to pay more or you having to send more pitches.
The consumer gets their drink. You get to have your cake and eat it, too, reaching both the paying and the non-paying public.
- Creating surround-sound marketing and branding
Marketing and branding content comes in many forms, and raw earned media is only one. Even a paywalled placement can be repurposed for social posts, blog content, e-newsletters, sales decks, podcast topics, and executive talking points. Wise public relations practitioners prioritize the relationships necessary to create maximum value from each placement.
But remember that you can make an impression without even using the nuts-and-bolts content, too. The WSJ logo means a lot even if the CFO can only see the first paragraph. The client’s prospect may even find that single quote impactful enough to reach out on LinkedIn, while their assistant noticed the blog blurb in the weekly newsletter.
And nobody even read, listened to, or watched the entire paywalled coverage!
Now, some will dismiss the above as inferior to actually getting the LLMs to cite content, given how online search is changing. And it’s certainly a lot less work to make a few key phrases than to track down the director of sales and convince him that the thought leadership op-ed must be included in the next sales deck.
But is online search changing as much as we think it is? Maybe not: A study out of McGill University tested whether LLMs could recall details from content only accessible behind paywalls — and found that they could. How or why isn’t fully understood. But the implication is significant: paywalled coverage may be shaping AI responses whether anyone can see it happening or not.
I don’t support AI systems consuming content without proper licensing or compensation to publishers. Stealing is stealing, no matter how you dress it up. But the reality is that this appears to be happening, and PR pros should factor it into how they think about coverage value.
- The licensing dispute won’t last forever
If you’re also opposed to stealing, don’t worry – there’s a second LLM factor that could change all this overnight anyway.
Right now, there’s an active dispute between AI companies and media outlets over licensing and content access. Several companies are working to broker agreements that would allow AI models to legally access and surface paywalled content.
When that gets resolved — and it will — even paywalled coverage that really was invisible to LLMs could become fully visible. The PR pros who kept pursuing quality placements will have a library of credible coverage ready to surface, though PANBlast Executive Vice President Lindsey Groepper noted that we’ll still have to know which AI companies have relationships with which paywalled outlets.
“Licensing deals between AI companies and publishers are changing fast,” she explained. “If those partnerships expand, paywalled content could show up much more directly inside AI systems. So, visibility in AI answers could increase quite a bit, and it likely won’t be evenly distributed.”
Beyond PR – the ethical solution past a paywall
There’s one more argument worth making, and it’s bigger than PR strategy.
Quality journalism costs money to produce. Paywalls exist because advertising alone can’t sustain the reporting that holds institutions accountable, surfaces important stories, and gives PR pros credible outlets worth pitching in the first place.
When PR firms and their clients invest in earning coverage from paywalled outlets — and then invest in subscriptions to read and share that coverage — they build their media list, sure. More than that, they’re helping keep high-quality journalism alive. Last (and best for PR), they deepen relationships with 24-karat contacts for when the next client comes along.
That’s the best way past a paywall, and a win-win for everybody.
