Marketing intelligence: Leveraging paid, owned, and earned media

Turning insights into action, communicating the value of your brand/product, testing/measuring performance.

Building a community of loyal customers can be challenging for any brand. However forward-thinking companies know the power of social media and understand that it takes a strong online presence to appropriately communicate the value of their brand to consumers. In turn, the brand’s narrative is greatly affected and strategically developed. 

The best way to truly grasp the concept of leveraging media marketing intelligence is to think of a brand that you personally and passionately believe in. Whether it is a particular brand of snack food, motor vehicle company or even a favorite hotel chain, the way a brand speaks to you and makes you feel is what you want your own brand to do. When consumers truly connect with a brand, they instantly become loyal. And, if the brand stays true to their values and customers, the brand turns those consumers into brand allies. For a brand, this is when you have advantageously reached a marketing utopia.

As we consider what the future of digital marketing holds, it can be easily discerned that this connection will be maintained very easily as markets move to greater convergence among paid, owned, and earned media.

[awesome_icon icon=”camera” size=”medium, large or small” highlighted=”yes”]BONUS MATERIAL: 13 MEDIA CHANNELS THAT HELP YOU TARGET – YOUR TARGET

Paid Media
Paid media is everything from display inventory on websites and email newsletters to promote things such as eBooks and content resources, but also webinars. In addition to ad buys and webinars, paid media includes social media advertising, Google AdSense as well as any other related sponsor. When using paid media to support your content marketing strategy, the following are important things to consider – regardless of your budget size.

1. Someone on your team must have media buying experience. Unfortunately, bloggers and content writers who do the bulk of your content, may not know anything about online advertising buying. Look for someone else within the company or hire someone new, it is that important. Having this type of skill set within your company will allow you to successfully utilize and leverage any ad spending and drive quality leads through paid placements for your content. It truly is a must for the success of your brand.

2. You should be measuring everything. This is also known as turning actions into insights. Don’t be afraid to be as transparent as possible within your organization. Know the metrics and how they compare to that of your competitors. As social media use continues to increase among users in the United States, marketers are doing what it takes to invest in and stay in front of their consumers. With AdSense, Facebook, Twitter, etc. the metrics are spelled out for you and very easy to follow.

Owned Media
Whether it be in 140 characters or eBooks, the fact is, everyone is a publisher these days. Brands are established content creators and their loyal customers want more and more engaging content. Blogs, videos, infographics, podcasts and even case studies are significant to loyal consumers. It is in your brand’s best interest to utilize tools such as WordPress or Drupal. These are platforms for your larger content while social media is perfect for delivering your brand’s message. Your social media efforts should be there as a form of key distribution for your content and help drive content marketing. It is a fantastic way to get consumer opinions and insights. Once you have established a significant presence, your followers and subscribers will trust you, share your content with others and help you drive the growth of your brand. That said, your social media presence needs to serve as a communication channel that informs key opinion leaders and influencers. You can create the content, but it is up to them, not you to decide how they will engage with your brand. Your owned social media should simply be and extension of your brand’s message. Take the time to monitor all blog post comments, handle PR, and answer questions and comments immediately. This type of owned media is the most interactive and in many ways needs to be baby-sat the most since it is so close to the public.

Earned Media
What good is all the content your company is created through blogs and social media, if it is not being picked up and spread virally? That is where earned media comes in. Perhaps the hardest to obtain, yet often the most genuine and organic, are the earned media mentions. Earned media is essentially, word-of-mouth and can mean huge success for your company. More than ever SEO is critical for earned media success. When your content goes viral, gets shared, reposted or reviewed, this drives your brand higher in the ranks among search engines. Besides creating prominent placements on the best websites and boosting Google (and any other search engine) traffic, earned media opportunities are excellent for helping your business stand out. Earned media is a way to stand out from the competition and stay in the forefront of consumer minds. The best way to get started with earned media is to integrate corporate communications right alongside your content marketing program. By keeping media relations in the loop, you can be sure your content is accessible and available for top success. Your company’s content needs to be interesting and informative, but most of all worthwhile in order to receive valuable earned media.

The Bottom Line
What companies regularly need is a more precise way to grasp the consumers’ needs. In short, brands require more insight that allow them to connect and act on the needs of growing the business. This is done starting at the top with the CEO or head of the business, and works its way down. If a business considers customer insights to be an important way to create value, than it is the responsibility of its leaders to make this priority known to the entire company. Do whatever it takes – even if it means throwing out any marketing plan that is not based on customers’ insights. The customer insight team must report to the marketing team in order for the two to create strategies that will benefit the whole company. They need to work together. Great content on all levels – paid, owned or earned – combine to successfully drive businesses. Your efforts will get the business to the next level every time.

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About Rogue Marketing

The Rogue team uses proven and emerging tools and approaches to build brands, amplify channels and minimize risk. The greatest capability this team has is the ability to help mid-size, growth-oriented businesses achieve amplified performance faster. The talented team at Rogue has experience and skill in many marketing disciplines. This team builds Web and commerce sites, produces and places digital media, runs social campaigns, creates videos, writes content, designs award-winning creative, develops mobile messaging campaigns, nurtures customers, optimizes sites, drives leads… and a whole lot more. Every day. Clients include Reddy Ice, Dell Services, Boston’s Pizza, Nutraspace and many more.