Marketers use specific terminology that is not easy for everyone to understand. Public relations services and agencies use words that can be difficult to understand, such as paid, owned, and earned media. These are some buzzwords that you might have encountered from various marketing agencies.
But what do they mean exactly, and how are they different from each other? In this article, we’ll cover the elements that differentiate them and what benefits each of them offers.
It will help you evaluate the current marketing trends and the new avenues you can explore. Also, understanding these media will help you know which one is doing well and which needs improvement. Let’s start by understanding their basic definition.
Owned Media: What Does It Entail?
The concept of owned media is pretty easy to understand. It includes all the things online that you own and can manage. Owned media is unique to your brand, and it allows you to market your brand in your way. Primary examples of owned media include:
· Blog sites
· Pages or accounts on different platforms
· Social media channels
· Website
The best thing about owned media is that you can extend your online presence in no time. Brands should focus on building and exploring more avenues for owned media. The fundamental component of owned media is your website.
Various social media channels and blog sites are extensions of your website. Nevertheless, they are equally crucial to driving traffic to your website.
Advantages of Owned Media
· You can have complete control over owned media.
· It allows you to build a cohesive branding and advertising campaign.
· Owned media allows you to present your message directly to your customers efficiently.
Paid Media: What Does It Entail?
The word paid media is self-explanatory, which entails marketing techniques or strategies you pay for. The purpose of paid media is to drive the content and support both earned and owned media. Paid media can help you tap into new markets.
You can promote your content creation efforts to get more exposure. Many social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, offer paid media advertising. You can use it to boost your content and drive traffic to your website as per your budget.
Paid media also includes paying influencers or celebrities to represent your goods or services. You can pay them depending on their reach and following on the different platforms. Another common strategy that many people use is PPC, SEO, and display ads campaigns to reach their target audience.
Advantages of Paid Media
· You can boost your content among the target audience to increase visibility.
· It enables you to build a strong online presence.
· You can increase the traffic to your website.
· This media impacts lead generation and conversion rates positively.
· Paid media gives you insight into the customers’ minds.
Earned Media: What Does It Entail?
Earned media entail getting promotion through other sources than paid advertising. Earned media helps people get to owned media sites, ultimately driving your branding and advertising efforts. The idea behind earned media entails promoting your brand through word of mouth online.
This media is the reason behind various trends from different brands coming into the market. The most popular term to describe earned media is viral, where people start to follow a particular bandwagon or share something due to its hype. As a result, brands can cash on the opportunity to earn a name for themselves.
The driving force behind earned media is organic ranking and content distribution. Good content quality with the best ranking strategies can help you make anything viral overnight. Since trends and viral things spread like wildfire on social media, you can enjoy the benefits of earned media.
Advantages of Using Earned Media
· Earned media comes with no cost.
· It has a higher ROI compared to other media types.
· You can build strong online credibility and a brand image
· The brand awareness among customers is more genuine than owned or paid media.
Difference between Paid, Owned, and Earned Media
If you want to make the most out of your marketing efforts, you need to understand the difference between these three media types. You can find out which media is getting you more exposure and which one needs improvement. Let’s go over some of the distinguishing factors between themselves.
· The most significant difference is that you need to pay for paid media to get your ads or sponsors in the public’s eyes, whereas owned and earned media are free.
· Owned media is your own, and you can control it any way you want. Earned media usually comes from the public, and you don’t have much authority over it. Paid media has varying options, depending on your budget.
· All three types of media offer different values to your brand.
Takeaway
Paid, owned, and earned media work in their way to help you build a brand. Each media type offers you unique benefits to help you boost your content visibility and increase traffic to the website. However, keeping an eye on all these three media types is vital since it can help you find which one is doing well.
You can focus on that specific media to enhance your brand recognition and increase brand awareness. Most importantly, you can figure out ways to improve the returns from other media. With a strong strategy regarding all media, you can make a name for yourself in no time.
