Improve Your Paid And Earned Media Approaches With These Tips.
Brands now have more say than ever before in how their messages are distributed because to the power of digital marketing. There are various benefits that paid media, like a data-driven programmatic advertising campaign, may provide that earned media cannot. Combining your owned media channels with your (digital) marketing strategy can help you reach your full media potential.
The purpose is to use each pillar’s unique qualities to the brand’s advantage. Brands may optimise their potential for exposure and brand awareness by simplifying earned media coverage, digital media advertising, content marketing, and social media marketing.
The Importance of Earned Media Coverage
For your brand to benefit from “earned media attention,” other parties must provide content about it. This coverage is the most trustworthy of the three categories discussed.
Around a decade ago, traditional media coverage in newspapers, periodicals, and broadcast sources was a major part of most businesses’ public relations (PR) efforts. In the modern day, earned media also include blogger mentions or reviews of your items and social media articles shared by others about your business.
Veracity is increased via earned media.
Audiences place more trust in earned media because it has been vetted by an objective source. This brand’s claims have been examined and validated by a journalist, blogger, or content producer, earning them a badge of honour.
Long-term, steady earned media exposure is useful for getting companies recognised, increasing brand recognition among target demographics and the broader public, and establishing credibility as an industry authority. Earned media’s impartiality is essential to the short- and long-term health of your business.
Getting this kind of media attention requires persistently and gradually seeking chances. They will eventually make a big impact on the achievement of your company’s long-term objectives.
What Role Does Sponsored Media Play?
Earned media offers numerous advantages, but it also has some drawbacks. It depends on other businesses agreeing to feature your brand above others. Furthermore, developing a rapport with the media may be time-consuming, and there’s no assurance that journalists and content creators will accept the brand’s stance on important subjects.
This is an ideal situation for using paid media methods. Brands may schedule the appearance of the material they wish to communicate with their intended audience through paid media techniques. With the help of a well-thought-out, data-driven paid media campaign, companies and their most influential figures may promote their products and services directly to their target audiences.
The most successful paid media efforts nowadays leverage captivating visuals, such as high-definition video, to directly engage with their target consumers.
With paid media, companies still get the last say.
Brand teams may maintain control over the content they distribute with the use of paid media. The risk of unexpectedly bad press is nonexistent. The brand’s internal staff or digital marketing agency makes the call on what should be said.
Most of the time, paid media can get the job done far quicker than earned media. You don’t have to network with any influencers in order to convince them that the story your brand is telling is more interesting than the others.
Ads, Links, and Your Own Media: Strategies for Success
The first step in optimising your purchased, earned, and even owned media is gaining an awareness of the benefits and drawbacks of each platform. Examine the current state of the brand as a whole first. Brand teams may use this information to develop a plan that takes advantage of the unique qualities of various media formats and uses them to their mutual benefit.
There are a few laws that hold true regardless of the brand, and those guidelines are rather consistent. Brands may schedule the release of material to their consumers via owned media like their own social media platforms. The brands still have sway on the information that is disseminated.
Owned media, on the other hand, can only reach those who are already familiar with the brand. It might be challenging to grow a client base and attract new viewers using only owned media.
Brands may reach new consumers through both paid and earned media. One benefit of paid advertising is that it gives the brand team complete autonomy. Marketers may get the most out of their advertising dollars by basing their paid media efforts on actual results. Yet, there is another drawback to sponsored media compared to earned media: the trustworthiness of the coverage is lower in paid media.
Earned media coverage’s credibility boost may be eroding, but it remains the highest. More than ninety percent of respondents to a survey conducted just before the coronavirus outbreak said they trusted earned media. A Pew Research Center survey conducted two years later revealed shifting trends regarding people’s trust in various institutions. Conservatives were found to have less faith in their primary news source if they saw it as “mainstream,” according to the survey. Although effective in the long run, earned media may be too sluggish for certain firms to reach their customers in time for a particular product launch.
Briefly Summing Up
Brands may optimise their strategy by learning the benefits and drawbacks of sponsored and earned media. Although the team works to cultivate partnerships that will lead to earned media coverage, purchased media may often provide quick wins and introduce the brand to new audiences. As of right now, both can be sustained by privately held media.