When comprehending marketing jargon, some terminology is “good to know,” and some is a “must know.” The latter includes paid, owned, and earned media concepts. These essential digital marketing assets all have their own purpose and impact on your strategies. Understanding the differences between them will help you increase the effectiveness of your strategies by being able to apply them correctly. Continue reading for clarification of how paid, owned, and earned media are defined and the details of their interrelationships.
With this professional insight, you will be able to evaluate your current marketing resources and assets and identify future marketing opportunities for your company. Partnering with a professional digital marketing agency like your Online Capital Group will certainly help track the results of all your marketing initiatives. This will make it possible to readily identify the media types that work best for your brand as well as those that could use some improvement.
Marketers are frequently changing their methods of budgeting, reporting, and method of investing in paid, owned, and earned media to reach and engage their customers. In light of the increasing relevance of social media and online PR, it is important to work actively and intricately with your strategies to keep your marketing approach fresh and relevant.
The three media “categories” of earned, shared, and paid media investments are commonly combined since they each offer the potential to influence consumers. None of these media forms are novel, but owned and earned media are now receiving more attention than paid media, which has traditionally held a majority of the fame.
How is Paid Media Defined?
The easiest definition is that of paid media. Paid or bought media requires a financial outlay to generate traffic, reach, or conversions via affiliate marketing, display ad networks, or search engine marketing. Traditional offline paid media, including print, TV, and direct mail advertising, remain significant and account for a sizable portion of paid media spending to this day.
In-app advertisements and other forms of targeted paid media, such as online streaming, are becoming increasingly prevalent due to an enormous amount of access to digital media. Paid content is a terrific technique to reach your intended target audience in digital marketing because of its sophisticated targeting capabilities. There are many benefits to using paid media in your marketing approach, but it is entirely up to you whether to utilize paid search or paid social (or both).
How Can Earned Media Be Described?
Earned media has historically been used to describe exposure produced by PR efforts. These efforts are usually focused on identifying influencers or relevant publication outlets to raise awareness about a company. It is still an investment, whether in terms of time, money, or both. However, when done effectively, this kind of investment has the greatest potential of gaining the support and trust of clients.
Word-of-mouth advertising (which can be sparked by viral and social media marketing) as well as dialogues in social networks, blogs, and other communities, is also considered a form of earned media. It’s helpful to think of earned media as being created by several partners, including bloggers, publishers, and other influencers like consumer advocates. Consider earned media as a mix of both online and offline communications made by your brand.
It is also sometimes known as free media or word-of-mouth advertising. The nicest thing about an earned media strategy is that it promotes trust in your company. It makes it possible for potential clients to realize your legitimacy and the appeal of your offerings.
How To Define Owned Media?
Simply put, the brand owns the media in question. This refers to a collection of a company’s online properties, such as its websites, blogs, mobile applications, or social media accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, for example. Both brochures and shop establishments are examples of offline-owned media.
It’s helpful to consider a company’s online presence as an asset. This is because these investments serve as properties that can deliver a return, despite how little or how much has been invested in them! They present chances to promote products or services using a variety of formats. This point highlights how crucial it is for all businesses to develop as multichannel publishers.
Owned marketing content is typically free, and you have complete control over who sees it. As a result, they often prove to be an effective element in content strategies. You must allocate funds for paid advertising, and you have no influence over earned media, but you can always provide content in the hopes of naturally connecting with your audience.
What distinguishes owned, paid, and earned media?
Owned and earned media are free, whereas paid media is content you pay to promote in front of an audience as an advertisement or sponsorship. Owned media is the kind of content you produce and manage, such as on your website or Facebook page, whereas earned media is the kind of content others produce about you, such as reviews or Instagram posts.
It makes sense that people frequently wonder what kind of media a specific marketing component is. Because marketers have a variety of alternatives to certain things, like social media, it’s not always evident what these components are. Let’s clear a few typical misunderstandings to make it as easy as possible to make these distinctions you can use to fuel your marketing efforts!
Is PR Content Earned, Owned, or Paid for?
PR is categorized as earned media. You have the option of paying for PR services or handling your own public relations. When a PR service creates content for your brand, like a press release, you have then received media you now own. Thus it has generated some Owned media. Lastly, Earned media can then be generated when people talk about your press releases, goods, services, quotes, name, company, or brand.
Influencers Can Be Owned, Paid, Or Earned
Influencers can fit into any of these categories. An “owned media” influencer would be a business thought leader who promotes your company through their content. An “earned media” influencer would refer to a fan devoted to your brand. A company can choose to support a conventional “paid media” influencer to work with or promote its products or services.
Is Social Media Owned or Earned?
“Social media” content might be owned, paid for, or earned. Your social media postings are typically owned marketing content that you generate and distribute for free. Social media advertisements are a form of paid advertising. Finally, you can receive earned media through clients’ and fans’ word of mouth on your social media accounts.
How To Combine Your Owned, Paid, And Earned Media?
Today’s digital marketer can access various strategies and channels thanks to these three prominent media types. Before plunging headfirst into the types of media, we advise establishing your goals and objectives.
Setting specific digital marketing goals and objectives will help you more effectively deliver them to professional agencies, acquire support from colleagues, and organize your business tasks. Additionally, if you need to increase your paid media budget, you will need a strong case for doing so, and planning may help you come up with the data to support this.
For Further Help Managing These Individual Media, Consult A Team of Professionals
Your Online Capital Group specializes in managing your online presence, including all aspects of Earned, Paid, and Owned media. Investing in media for your brand is important and, when done effectively, can achieve the highest ROI possible for your brand’s efforts. Give us a call today at (904) 600-3600 for more information on how we can help organize your brand’s digital marketing efforts.
For further information about our content generation services and online presence management, you can visit our website.
