In today’s competitive market, it’s tough to know the most effective way to promote your brand. Should you advertise? If so, where? Should you maintain a social media presence? Should you write a blog? Should you sponsor editorial content? Etc, etc, etc. In our experience, marketing campaigns work best with a combination of earned, owned and paid media. If this sounds like Greek to you, don’t worry. Read on.

Owned Media

Owned media pertains to any unique content that your company or brand has developed in house to use at your discretion. Examples of owned media are blogs, social media posts, website copy and newsletters. Owned media is important to have for a couple of reasons. For starters, it is something that you can control. You have the ability to accurately represent your brand and decide what followers know about you. Secondly, owned media has the potential to reach a wide audience through likes, comments and shares.

Earned Media

For those of us in the PR world, earned media is our bread and butter. It works to further a brand’s message through third party channels like newspaper articles, online publications, mentions and reviews. It’s effective because it gives outside credibility to the brand’s message and exposes them to an audience that they would not have been able to reach on their own. It’s important to remember that earned media can be slow moving and is achieved through a strategic, targeted approach. Securing earned media often requires a relationship with key influencers and reporters – and that’s where we come in. We work to analyze your brand’s objectives and messages and to craft a holistic, multi-faceted campaign to garner important media attention.

Paid Media

Paid media is exactly what it sounds like. Although pay-for-play marketing can sometimes get a bad rap, it can be an extremely useful tool that helps advance the efforts of owned and earned media. Paid media refers to print or online advertisements, paying to boost posts on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, buying sponsored articles, or engaging influencers to write about or mention your brand. Paid media, when done correctly, works to create momentum for your message.

As you can see from these three unique approaches, an effective marketing campaign requires the use of many vehicles. One-off posts and occasional ads are often not effective and can be an enormous waste of time and money. When carefully thought out and executed with a precise plan, campaigns that employ owned, earned and paid media will further your message, attract new clients and boost your brand’s image.