What is owned, earned, and paid media?
If you are new in the marketing agency and have no idea about what owned, earned, and paid media are? You are going to face big issues in making your name there. It is worth spending time learning them as they make your marketing unique and more efficient. They all work together, but first of all, let’s have a view of their definitions.
What is Owned Media?
Owned Media is the first step in marketing. As its name says, it is the media we owned such as websites, channels, or blogs. Even if it is on any platform and not actually your “own” (for example YouTube channel is owned by YouTube Company, or Facebook page depends on Facebook, etc) you create and control it without paying money for it.
It may be a small move, but it matters and all other investments depend on these media. For example, when you decide to create a YouTube channel, it takes only a few minutes to create one and maybe 1or 2 days in posting your first video but it is a long-term investment as it takes time to get public or in promoting your channel but all your next moves depend on the channel you created.
Paid Media
As the name directs, it is the media you pay for such as display ads or search engine advertisements. It is the easiest and smart way to get the audience and get a fast response on what you spending time on.
Especially when you are a small marketing agency or starting any business, it is a smart move to get public. For example, when you are a young makeup artist and create a YouTube Channel to create makeup tutorials but can’t get publicity, you pay YouTube a small amount. They show your ads to people who search for a makeup tutorial, so they see your video and subscribe to your channel. Also, share that with others if they found it good. Like this, you can get a lot of audiences by paying some amount.
Earned Media
This one is the hardest but most important goal of your marketing plans. These Media are also perfectly defined by their name “earned”. The media what you earn means when other people or media (news reporters) share your content or promote you even if they tell someone about you from their mouth.
The best thing about these media is this is free and has a long-term relationship as they can hold your brand for a long while and can also convince many other people to stick by your side but the biggest issue of this strategy is this doesn’t work under your control. It can take a long while, not according to your wish, or can work negatively as if someone dislikes you. They can write or tell people bad about you.
Difference between owned media, earn media, and paid media
To understand the difference between owned, earned and paid media, there is a small difference table given
| Basis of comparison | Owned Media | Earned Media | Paid Media |
| Definition | These are the media owned and controlled by you. | These are the media in which customers promote or help in growing | These are the media that you pay to get public or show ads |
| What roles they play | All the marketing strategies are dependent on them as they are building for the long time investment | This is the end result as it helps in all sales insights and works with earned media | This helps in promoting your work and gets more earned media. |
| Profits | It is a long-term investment. It can be controlled. It is cost-efficientplace public | It is unpaid. Plays role in increasing sales.Stays for a long while.It is transparent. | It works fast. It can be controlled. It is in demand. It can be scaled. |
| Cons | It can be time taking.There is no guarantee of success. You can’t trust company statements. | It is hard in measuring. It can work negatively It can’t be scaledYou can’t control it. | There is less trustworthiness There can be an issue of cost sometimes. There can be confusion. Can take extra time to respond. |
| Examples | Blogs YouTube channel Website or mobile sites Social media pages such as Twitter account or Facebook page | Wow Buzz Viral Common consumers, subscribers, or followers | Ads Sponsorship Searches |
How earned, paid and owned Media works together?
When you create or work on any marketing strategies, it is important to keep all 3 Medias in your mind and work with them step by step. Here is a small example to make you understand that
If you want to run a successful Twitter account first of all you need to create a successful page and wait for some stable followers but when you get some followers, the second step you need to work is how to get more followers and at this stage paid media helps you to promote and get more followers who are interested in your content and after this, you wait for some earned media which helps you in achieving even more followers like this paid and earn media both works together in getting more followers whereas they both are completely dependent on owned media.
In short, there are these four main steps to work with all 3 media;
- Create your own content
- Get some advice or public in it
- Pay some 3rd parties or influencers
- Create special kinds of Facebook discounts that are paid.
Points to remember
When you try to work on 3 Medias together, you may face these confusions which are just myths
- Owned media is enough.
When you own a media such as a blog or account but it does not contain enough traffic even after having excellent content you don’t get any profit and this can be demotivating many times. This is when you need to earn and paid media as they come with support and profits you need so only owning a channel isn’t enough you need other two media’s also
- Paid media is more expensive than any other media
We all heard since our childhood “Time is money”, so the two things you invest on your channel are money and time. Many times when you own a channel you pay for the tools you use and invest a lot of time creating the content, so here you invest both. The same goes with earned media, when you want to earn followers in a huge amount, you have to pay for them or take help from Paid media. And you can’t control the time it takes so it is also taking both.
