The three avenues via which a brand may obtain visibility and connect with the public are paid media, owned media, and earned media.

However, not everyone is aware of the distinctions between the three channels. Is social media, for example, an owned or earned channel? Which sort of media gives your organization the most bang for its buck?

When it comes to instances of sponsored media, owned media, and earned media, each kind serves a distinct purpose and necessitates a different strategy. Investing time in learning about each one and how it fits into your entire marketing planwill help your message reach your target audience in the most effective way possible.

Owned - Paid - Earned (OPE) Media

What Is Earned Media?

Earned media refers to notoriety or exposure obtained via means other than paid advertising.

If owned media sites are the destination, earned media is the means by which people arrive there. What use is a website or social media site if no one visits it or interacts with it? This is where earned media comes into play.

Earned media is simply online word of mouth, sometimes manifested as 'viral' tendencies, mentions, shares, reposts, reviews, recommendations, or content picked up by third-party sites. One of the most powerful driving elements of earned media is generally a mix of high organic search engineresults and content delivered by the company. The most important factors are usually first-page rankings and high-quality content.

Rankings on the first page of search engines position your owned media sites and content links to generate more interaction and shares, which is why a smart SEOplan is critical. When it comes to brand content, compelling, useful material may take several forms. Whether it's a blog, infographic, video, press release, webinar, or an e-book, the bottom line is that the material has to be valuable in order to gain the value of earned media, which is why a solid content strategyis essential.

How Much Does Earned Media Cost?

While earned media is often free, some of it may be charged. Many third-party review sites and platforms, for example, allow you to create a free basic account. They do, however, provide more services for a paid premium membership.

While you may choose to pay for particular accounts, the real recognition and attention you receive on these platforms are referred to as earned media.

When it comes to earned media, some costs to consider are any platform or software fees, the resources required to develop a profile, and other expenditures for content creation.

How Much Time Earned Media Takes?

It's time to get started: Earned media is usually the product of other marketing activities. Assume someone shares your most recent blog article or reposts your new campaign poster. Although the sharing is earned media, the actual post needs you to first design, write, and publish the material.

Time to see results: Measuring the benefits of earned media might take several weeks to many months. Of course, social metrics such as likes and shares will be visible very immediately.

However, tracking impressions, clicks, and other SEO-related statistics takes longer. It's also a good idea to promote your content on a regular basis in order to increase engagement and encourage people to link to your site.

What’s The Return On Investment (ROI) For Earned Media?

The most difficult aspect of estimating ROI for earned advertising is measuring with absolute precision. To begin with, estimating how much work is required to produce word of mouth or earned media, whether that means reaching out to influencersor boosting marketing efforts, is challenging.

Furthermore, it is very hard to identify whether an increase in traffic or revenue is purely due to earned media.

However, while the impacts of earned media are only estimates, most businesses believe it is well worth it since it fosters genuine trust and loyalty for the brand.

What Is Paid Media?

Paid media is just marketing that you pay for. Overall, it is used to promote content, drive earned media, and route visitors to owned media properties.

Paying to promote content can help get things started and increase visibility. Paid media advertising is available on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which might potentially assist improve your content as well as your website.

Another strategy for increasing the reach and recognition of your content is to pay influencers to promote your products or services. Using retargeting, Pay Per Click(PPC), and display advertisements is a more direct and successful strategy to attract searchers to your owned media sites, such as your website, in order to improve traffic and/or conversions.

How Much Does Paid Media Cost?

The cost of paid media is determined by the channel and duration of your advertisement. For example, social media advertisingis quite inexpensive, yet a full-page print placement might be rather costly.

The cost is also affected by the duration or frequency of the advertisement. Will the advertisement run for a single holiday weekend or for the full month? A longer run period improves the number of people who view your advertisement, but it also increases the final cost.

Another expense to consider is set up, which may sometimes surpass the cost of paid media placement. If you don't have someone in-house to generate your assets, you'll need to budget for a contractor price.

Content creation, design, production, website configuration, and other fees are also involved with sponsored media.

How Much Time Does Paid Media Take?

Time to set up: If you're producing an ad from scratch, the initial setup for sponsored media might be time-consuming. On the other side, if you're advertising or modifying current material, you'll save a lot of time in the beginning.

To get the most out of your sponsored advertising, you should consider creating landing pages to which viewers will be led after clicking the ad. Landing pages must be properly crafted in order to convert leads into customers and might take some time to create.

Time to see results: Once a paid media ad is established, it may generate visitors nearly instantly. People may view the adverts as soon as they are posted. This makes sponsored marketing particularly appealing for companies seeking immediate visibility and first consumers.

What Is The Return On Investment (ROI) For Paid Media?

The ROI for sponsored media can vary greatly depending on the channel, cost of items sold, client lifetime value, and so on. The good news is that most paid media channels have the opportunity to monitor and analyze critical data, allowing you to precisely calculate your ROI in proportion to your investment.

It's a good idea to know your budget and minimum necessary sales ahead of time so you can decide if the paid advertising channel is worthwhile.

What Is Owned Media?

Owned media is any website that you own and that is specific to your brand.

A website is one of the most frequent instances of owned media, but blog sites and social media channels are other examples of owned media properties. Social media and blogs are extensions of your website, and all three are extensions of your overall brand. The more owned media you have, the more opportunities you have to expand your brand's digital presence.

How Much Does Owned Media Cost?

There are several wonderful website platforms (such as WordPress.com or Wix.com) and social media accounts accessible for free if you're searching for a simple site so you can start generating owned media as soon as possible.

However, you may want to consider purchasing your own channel in the future. You could desire a more extensive website on your own server, for example. The cost will vary depending on the name and host you select, and can range from as little as $10 per year to hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Take note of the things you definitely require and begin pricing comparisons. There are other factors that might add cost, especially when bespoke design and development are involved. These costs may include domain registration, web hosting, a designer/developer charge, website themes, plugins, and so on.

How Much Time Owned Media Takes?

Time to set up: Owned media takes time to set up. Because you have complete control over every aspect, you should put some thought and work into your owed media outlets.

Of course, with a plug-and-play platform, you may be able to get something up and running quickly. Even so, you still have a few days of planning and preparation ahead of you.

Furthermore, owned media does not exist in a vacuum. It needs ongoing attention in the form of new material and updates. You may be able to post a few original items every week, including writing and creating visuals, depending on your crew.

Time to see results: It might take anything from a few weeks to a few months for your website's pages to be crawled and ranked correctly. So, if you're tracking SEO metrics, you might want to wait a few weeks before looking at any stats.

Social media sites, on the other hand, may get likes in a matter of seconds. However, building a big following might take time.

What’s The Return On Investment (ROI) For Owned Media?

Measuring the ROI of an eCommercewebsite is simple - how many things have been sold and how much profit have you made?

It can be a little more difficult for other sorts of websites. You may use software like Google Analyticsto check how much traffic your website is producing, or you can look at blog analytics to see how your content marketingis contributing to your overall ROI.

Is PR Earned Or Owned Media?

Earned media is traditionally defined as a PR proposal made to a writer, who may include the brand in a featured piece or mention it in an article in some form, whether it's a print or online publication. In this sense, earned media is all about cultivating relationships.

Is PR Called Earned Media And Advertising Called Paid Media?

Earned media can be seen in brand mentions and media exposure gained via marketing as opposed to paid advertising. Earned media strategies are frequently developed by businesses through PR, digital marketing, and events. Earned media, as opposed to owned media, is promotion and coverage provided by third-party organizations or publications.