Marketing Defined: Paid Owned Earned Media Strategy in a Social World

ByUrban Renstrom Posted on Marketing
Paid Earned Owned Media

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Paid media is the oldest marketing tactic in the playbook.
Earned media, reviews, recommendations and mentions are the second oldest.
Owned media are the assets you own.

Yet, in the rage of TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts how do you leverage a Paid Owned Earned Media Strategy?

Leverage Paid Owned Earned Media to get attention, traffic, clicks, and conversions (sales).

How do you mix your marketing to get more and scale your brand? I know you know Marketing is important, but, the $64,000 is where should you invest resources for the best return.

Marketing basics: Peter Drucker says our business has two main functions – market and innovate:

…because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.

Peter Drucker

The question is how does one mix the media to market the business and get more?

Don’t worry, I am Urban Renström, there is always science and research involved in everything I talk about, teach, and demonstrate.

Review: The Traditional Media Playbook

Yes, this 👇 is an “on the nose” meme of media types – yet it rings true.

Paid Earned Owned Media

The traditional marketing ‘playbook’ is buying ads. In newspapers, radio, or TV. Pay a lot and you got a lot. Pay nothing and you get nothing. The paid media model is a hundred years old.

Public relations build the audience, marketing brings in the leads and sales convert the leads to cash.

POEM - Paid, Earned, Owned Media
Public Relations, Marketing, Leads (not my image…cannot remember where seen so cannot attribute properly…)

PR, marketing and sales are the trifectas of the outwards facing part of a business.

How to leverage POEM to Get More Clients?

The POEM framework crosses all industries and allows for a common language among ad agencies, venture capital and businesses.

POEM
Chart of the paid, owned and earned media types. via Forrester Research

Paid Media

  • Paid media — is media you buy — ads, influencer marketing, sponsorships and product placements. You pay to get a message in front of an audience. Paid media is renting an audience. Think newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and outdoor ads. Online examples are TicTok, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook ads etc. Newspaper and Social media companies own the audience and you are paying to get your message in front of them. “Get your sofa and John’s sofa factory – mention this ad and get 10% off your next purchase“

Owned Media

  • Owned — is media you own. Email list, newsletters, articles, research and white papers etc., the content on your Facebook Pages, Twitter Pages, YouTube and Snapchat channels.

Earned Media

  • Earned – earned is what others say about you. Earned is the holy grail of business. When other brands mention you when a customer or fan gives a review. When a YouTuber reviews your product. A downside is you cannot control what others say.

Paid Organic Media

  • Any ads on social media. Paid organic is the new black! It is a mash-up of organic and paid. The idea is that you pay to get a piece of your owned media (images, blog posts, ideas, etc) in front of people in the Facebook news feed.

Shared Media

  • Shared Media sits in the middle of the overlapping circles of Paid, Earned and Owned media. Shared media is the sharing of content (media) on sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Shared content can propagate across an individual’s network to other networks. Paid and Owned Media can inspire Shared Media. Shared Media can inspire Earned Media. And a virtuous circle is complete.

Owned Media Content for Each Stage of the Sales Funnel

👉 Content for the awareness stage includes guides, press releases, informative articles (lots of these), quizzes (quiz funnel!), games, and competitions.

👉 Content for the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey includes demo videos, reports and white papers, ebooks, case studies, your about page, ‘us vs them and buyer’s guides.

👉 Content for the conversion stage includes events, webinars, checklists, product features lists, customer testimonials, reviews and ratings, product or pricing pages, contact pages, sales pages, and comparison tools.

Transforming The Paid, Owned, Earned Media Model

Traditional media, TV, newspapers, radio etc., are losing money to online channels.

This shift is because of the rise of the internet, and social networking and trust in advertisements have dropped. Our attention spans are wavering from the internet. We skip ads with our TIVO and Sky+ DVR boxes, and we get unbiased, undiluted information and knowledge from the internet.

The popular paid, owned, earned media models — are in need of updating.

Twitter the Magic Bullet for SME
Recommendations are Trusted Highest

The convergence of Paid Owned Earned Media, POEM

The amount of owned media has increased with the ease of blog publishing platforms.

Earned media is transforming paid media.

The paid media model is no longer the “foundation” of marketing. The lines between media are blurring and are “evolving into a catalyst that at key periods of the owed and earned media process to drive engagement”.

Paid Owned Earned Media
Witness the Convergence of Paid, Owned, and Earned Media.

How do you Leverage a POEM Strategy to get More?

How to get more earned mentions?

Do you ask for them? Offer coupons to get mentions. Set up a loyalty program (gamify) to see which customers can get the most likes or shares. Give t-shirts, swag bags or swag boxes to people.

If you delight people with your product and services then you have happy customers. Happy customers will give you reviews. Happy customers will make videos.

POEM is simply a way to understand and group media for your brand.

When we understand we have knowledge. With knowledge comes awareness. With awareness, we can leverage.

Leveraging your media for maximum effect is one angle of the marketing mix.

Paid media is ads. In radio, TV, newspapers and online.
For example, sponsoring a product on a YouTube channel. Placing ads in a popular newsletter.

Earned media is the best there is because other people are talking about your brand, products and business.
Think reviews, recommendations and testimonials (TripAdvisor, Google reviews, Facebook page reviews). And mentions in Tweets, YouTube videos, LinkedIn, Facebook posts etc.

Owned media is the media you’ve created. Podcasts, videos, articles, white papers, original research, infographics.

When you follow the numbers, using your web analytics package of choice, you have insights into which channel, which audience segment and which media assets (paid, earned or owned) are contributing.

Contributing towards traffic, leads, enquires and conversions (sales). Understanding which media is contributing to traffic, leads, enquires and conversions (sales) means we can increase the budget on one and reduce the others.

No. Full stop. SEO by itself is not a type of media.

Optimizing media for search engines is required – so the media gets indexed, gets found, and attributed to your brand.

Owned media are assets your brand has created.

Blog posts, white papers, original research, infographics, podcasts, and webinars are all media assets you own.

Media in social media can be all three – paid, owned and earned.

Paid media – when you publish ads on social media – that is paid media

Owned media – publishing a Facebook, LinkedIn post, Tweeting or a video.

Earned media in social media is when someone shares your post or tweet.

Ah, very interesting.

Influencers are paid to promote products to their audience. An “influencer” has an audience. And your brand is paying to get your message or product in front of its audience.

Influencer Marketing is Paid Media

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