What is a PR Placement?
In the world of public relations, one term that you'll frequently come across is "PR placement." But what exactly does it mean?
What is a PR Placement?
A PR placement is what happens when you or your company gets referenced by a media outlet. A newspaper. A magazine. An online publication. A podcast. A TV show. The reference itself, whether it's a quote, a mention, or a full article about you, is the placement.
If a PR firm pitches a writer at Forbes who drops your name in an article, that's a placement. If a podcast PR service lands you an interview on a show, that's a placement. If your firm gets your product mentioned on a news segment, that's a placement.
WHAT ISN’T A PR PLACEMENT?
What if a journalist finds your product on Amazon on their own and writes about it? That's great, but it's not a PR placement in the traditional sense. A placement usually involves active effort: pitching, following up, and participating in making the coverage happen.
Here's a trickier one. Your PR firm pitches Journalist A, who writes about you. Journalist B reads that article and independently writes their own piece. Is that second article a placement? Reasonable people disagree. The honest answer is somewhere between "yes," "no," and "does it matter?" The coverage is the coverage.
The kinds of PR placements that actually matter
Not all placements are equal. There are two main types.
A mention is when a journalist quotes you as an expert in an article that isn't specifically about you. You're referenced, but you're not the focus.
A feature is when you're the primary subject. "How [Your Name] Built a $10M Business" is a feature. These are the articles people frame and hang on their office wall.
There's one more distinction worth making, especially if you're evaluating PR firms. Some placements are editorial, meaning a journalist or editor decided on their own that your story was worth covering. Others are paid, like Forbes BrandVoice, Forbes Councils, or sponsored content. Paid placements are labeled as such and carry less weight with readers and with search engines. At Canvas, everything we do is editorial. No advertorials, no council placements, no paid spots.
How PR placements happen
PR firms do this through relationships. Most people don't know journalists personally. PR professionals build those relationships over time and use them to connect the right story with the right writer, in a way that benefits both sides.
Most PR firms charge a monthly retainer regardless of results. You pay the fee whether or not they place anything.
Canvas works differently. We charge a flat fee per article. If you don't get the placement, you don't pay.
One more thing worth knowing: PR placements are increasingly doing double duty. A feature in Forbes or Inc. doesn't just build credibility with human readers. It influences how AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity describe you and your business. When someone asks one of those tools "who are the top consultants in [your industry]," the sources those tools were trained on, including major publications, shape the answer. Getting placed in credible outlets is one of the best ways to influence that.
How to get PR placements
Three main paths.
Do your own PR by pitching journalists directly. This means building relationships with reporters and learning how to tell your story in a way that's interesting to them. We have a post on how to do your own PR if you want to go that route.
Hire a PR firm to pitch on your behalf.
Do attention-getting things that generate coverage on their own. Think stunts, bold public statements, or genuinely newsworthy moves. Harder to engineer, but when it works, it works.
If you want to see which publications Canvas works with and what placements cost, start here.
