Proper media positioning can help you reach a broader audience, boost credibility, and inspire brand loyalty. However, there’s a catch:
The result you experience is determined by the type of media you employ. While paid, owned, and earned media are vital parts of your digital marketing strategy, they each have their strengths and limitations. You need a thorough understanding of each type to effectively leverage these benefits.
In this post, I’ve explained how paid, owned, and earned media work and shared some tips on combining them to form a solid online marketing strategy.
Table of Contents
Understanding Paid Media
Paid media is any type of media you have to pay for. It is also called bought media and includes any media that requires you to exchange money for publicity, exposure, reach, or conversions.
This media type is one of the oldest and most effective ways to increase your brand’s reach. Examples of paid media include:
- Pay-per-click search engine advertising
- Online banners and display ads like Google Ads
- Influencer marketing
- Displayed ads on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
- Sponsored content published on websites and blogs
- Online ads like display ads and banners
Benefits of Paid Media
- Expanded Reach: One of the biggest benefits of paid media is its ability to reach a larger audience. When done right, paid media channels allow you to get more people than possible with your owned channels.
Sponsoring content on another website’s blog, for instance, exposes your brand to that website’s audience. Paid search (another form of paid media) ensures your brand pops up on the result page when your target audience searches for keywords related to your industry.
- Precise Targeting: Another major benefit of paid media is its precise targeting. You can target specific customers based on the demographics of your choice. This also translates to paid media being easy to control and manage. You choose when to initiate a campaign and what platforms to target with your advertising.
- Measurability: Return on investment is a vital part of social media marketing. You want to be sure that your marketing efforts are bringing tangible results. Paid media campaigns are 100% measurable. You can track your results and adjust them as you deem fit.
- Quick Results: Paid media produces fast results. It’s a fantastic way to increase brand awareness in the shortest possible time.
Limitations of Paid Media
While paid media is one of the fastest ways to increase your reach, one of its biggest issues is the need for more credibility. Many potential customers don’t believe in paid advertisements.
Another major challenge is the cost. Paid media is more expensive than owned and earned media.
What Is Owned Media
Owned media is any media you create and publish yourself. It covers any web property or targeted content created by your brand; you do not pay others to execute them.
We live in a digital age, and most potential customers check brands’ online presence before buying. An effective owned media strategy allows you to influence their perception of your brand.
Owned content like blog articles, social media accounts, landing pages, product pages, and other website content helps you establish your brand identity and expertise in people’s minds. Since the content is directly from you, it’s an organic way to connect with your target audiences.
Other examples of owned media include:
- Company website pages (about us pages, landing pages, product page)
- Blog posts
- Social media posts
- Email newsletters
- Informative content
Benefits of Owned Media
- Showcase Your Industry Expertise: By publishing content that showcases your industry expertise, you can build trust with those who have found your brand.
- Absolute Control: Owned media gives you complete autonomy in engagement with your audience. You choose the platforms you use, what you wish to tell them, and how you want to tell it.
- Build a Community: This absolute control also inspires stronger user engagement. It costs almost nothing to switch up your content as your audience’s interests change. Also, the personal approach of owned media properties makes it easier to build an emotional connection and foster a community with your target audience.
- Low Cost: Owned media is also a brilliant way to engage your audience at a lower cost. It is cheaper than paid media, even if you outsource the content creation. It’s always cheaper to publish content via your channels than on advertising platforms.
- Retain Audience Attention: Lastly, owned media is an effective way to retain the audience’s attention. Consistently publishing useful posts (articles, infographics, pictures, etc.) on your company channels keeps your existing audience engaged. It’s also quite effective for keeping your customers in the loop about new products and company updates.
Limitations of Owned Media
Owned media allows you complete autonomy; however, it has limited visibility. It is mostly visible to people who know your brand and are already following or searching your website.
You can combat this by applying search engine optimization best practices. However, owned media is most effective for nurturing leads in the marketing funnel or fostering current customer relations.
There’s also the issue of credibility. Some customers may not fully accept what you publish, knowing it may be biased.
What Is Earned Media
Earned media is any marketing effort that comes from other organizations or people. It’s when external parties produce content that endorses your brand without receiving financial incentives from you. This includes websites, review communities, podcasts, and media outlets. Think of it as online word of mouth.
Earned media is vital to your digital marketing strategy because it provides the social proof and credibility paid and owned media lack. It showcases your expertise and backs it up with social proof without incurring direct costs. Some examples are:
- Social media likes, comments, and shares
- Influencer endorsements
- Website reviews
- Testimonials
- User-generated content
- Online recognition and awards
- Honorable mentions in news outlets
Benefits of Earned Media
- Increased Credibility: The major benefit of earned media is its credibility. Potential customers trust earned media more than owned and paid media. People are more inclined to believe an external party’s review of your brand over yours. It’s even more credible when users like them create content to endorse your brand.
- Increased Visibility: Another benefit of earned media is increased reach and visibility. The more external parties talk about your brand, the greater your visibility and reach. Backlinks and website mentions also improve your ranking on search engines.
- Customer Feedback: Earned media is one of the best ways to get valuable feedback. Through customers’ reviews, you can note the areas you’re doing great and where you still need to improve. This feedback could be the missing link between where you are now and where you want your business to be.
Limitations of Earned Media
A major challenge with earned media is its unpredictability. It’s not easy to get people to speak well of your brand. You have no control over what people say about your brand online.
Yes, earned media can endorse your brand. However, one negative review can significantly affect your online credibility.
Comparing Paid Owned and Earned Media
Paid, owned, and earned media significantly differ in cost and control. Paid media is more expensive than earned and owned media.
Spending a significant part of your budget on publicity and advertising is necessary to get your brand before your target audience. Also, the conversion rates on paid media are significantly lower than those of earned and owned media.
Owned media is less cost-intensive; however, it comes with the challenge of visibility. Your content marketing strategy won’t be effective if it isn’t reaching your target audience, regardless of how good it is.
Earned media is the cheapest; however, you have no control over what is said about your brand. With owned and paid media, you have complete control over the message and how you wish to engage your audience. Earned media is the least predictable in this regard.
Combining Paid Owned and Earned Media for a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign
A successful digital marketing strategy requires a healthy balance of each media type. Paid media will help you reach a broader audience and increase your brand’s visibility by pushing it before more people.
It’s a quick and effective method of significantly increasing brand awareness. If the primary aim of your marketing strategy is media exposure, then paid media is the way to go.
For example, you can use PPC (pay-per-click) social media ads to direct traffic to your pages, where users can engage with some of your earned and owned media. With the owned media, you can display your industry expertise, educate them on your offers, and give them reasons to pick you over your competitors.
After using owned media to push them through your marketing funnel, use earned media to ratify your credibility and influence their buying decision. Do this by strategically placing links to testimonials and reviews on your website.
Also, increase credibility by adding influencer partnerships and user-generated content to your content marketing strategy. There’s a plethora of ways you can combine these media options to boost engagement and obtain maximum results.
The trick is to adopt a digital marketing strategy that ensures the three forms of media work together to achieve your desired outcome.
Get The Digital Marketing Expertise Your Business Needs
Any company looking to thrive in this digital age must be ready to leverage paid, owned, and earned media effectively. However, doing so can be difficult if you don’t have the right expertise.
At Vivian Agency, we specialize in tailored referral programs and influencer marketing for B2C and e-commerce businesses. We can help you manage your paid and earned media for maximum results. Contact us via our contact page or book a call with us today.