What is Owned Media? Your 2024 Guide
Marketing consists of three elements: owned, paid, and earned media. While most marketers know that pulling the paid media lever will result in higher awareness, this can be a costly strategy if used alone, which is where owned media comes into play.
In this article, we discuss what mediums are considered ‘owned media’, how to launch a successful owned media strategy and explore the differences between owned, paid, and earned media.
What is Owned Media?
Owned media refers to any web property that a company controls and is unique to its brand. This includes websites, blogs, mobile apps, email newsletters, and social media accounts. Unlike paid or earned media, owned media is entirely under the company's control, offering an unparalleled opportunity to shape the narrative around its brand, products, and services.
Benefits of Owned Media
There are a lot of pros to owned media, but when developing a strong owned media strategy, a few of the benefits you can expect include:
More Earned Media, Backlinks, and Domain Authority
High-quality owned content can attract attention from other websites and platforms, leading to earned media in the form of shares, mentions, and backlinks. This not only extends your reach but also improves your site's authority and search engine rankings.
Large Returns if the Content is Strategically Planned and Distributed
By aligning your content with your audience's needs and distributing it through the right channels, you can achieve significant returns on investment. This strategic approach ensures that your content resonates with your target audience, driving engagement and conversions.
Maintain Complete Control Over Messaging
Owned media gives you the editorial freedom to dictate the message, tone, and style of your content. This control is invaluable in maintaining brand consistency and building trust with your audience.
Owned Media Channels Include:
Owned media channels are any marketing mediums your company has control over and doesn’t have to pay for. These channels include:
Website
Your website is the cornerstone of your owned media strategy, acting as the digital storefront for your brand. Your company is in complete control of what messages are conveyed.
Blog
A part of your website, a blog serves as a platform to share insights, news, and thought leadership, driving organic search traffic and engagement. Blogs play a key role in SEO strategies, which can increase visibility and owned media initiatives.
App
Mobile apps offer a direct line to your audience, providing a personalized user experience and fostering loyalty.
Emails and Newsletters
Email marketing remains a powerful tool for direct communication with your audience, promoting content, products, and events. From “left in cart” emails to industry update newsletters, emails are a great owned media tool.
Lead Gen Content
Gated content like webinars, eBooks, and whitepapers are key for lead generation, offering valuable information in exchange for contact details. Even though this content is gated, and you may be paying for the advertisement of it, the content itself is completely owned.
Physical Mail
Despite the digital focus, physical mail can be a differentiated touchpoint in a comprehensive owned media strategy. From coupon codes to magazines, physical mail can keep you top-of-mind– not to mention some people are old school and prefer it.
Video Content
Videos are an engaging format to convey your message, showcase products, and share insights. Being present on YouTube and other social media platforms via video is rising in popularity, especially for B2B companies.
Podcasts
Podcasts have surged in popularity, offering a personal way to reach your audience through thought leadership and storytelling. Podcasts are one of the most effective ways to engage B2B audiences without seeming like a thinly-veiled sales pitch.
Social Media
Social media platforms allow for direct engagement with your community, content distribution, and brand building.
How to Create an Owned Media Strategy
Owned media is powerful, but can be used incorrectly. When users see inconsistent messaging all “supposedly” from the same source, red flags are raised. The brand story you tell needs to be consistent across all platforms. From defining goals to launching content, we cover all things strategy below.
Define Goals
Before diving into content creation and distribution, you need to define what you want to achieve with your owned media strategy. These goals can range from increasing brand awareness, generating leads, and improving customer engagement, to driving sales. Whatever your goals may be, make sure your entire team understands your objectives and works within your defined messaging guidelines.
Identify Your Target Audience
Understanding who your target audience is plays a large role in shaping your owned media strategy. Consider factors such as demographics, psychographics, and behavior patterns. This insight will guide your content creation, helping you to produce material that resonates with your audience, addresses their needs, and solves their problems.
For the greatest impact, you need to understand everything from small preferences to the overarching values of your audience. For example, if your audience is super environmentally conscious, sending mailers to their homes might come off as a tone-deaf move. If your audience is not the most tech-savvy, investing in creating a complex app is a waste as well.
Craft a Content Marketing Strategy
A content marketing strategy is the backbone of your owned media efforts. It involves planning, creating, distributing, and analyzing content to achieve your business goals and engage your target audience. Check out our guide to B2B content marketing.
Utilizing Thought Leadership
Establishing your brand as a thought leader in your industry is a powerful way to leverage owned media, and a great launching pad when it comes to creating your content marketing strategy. This involves creating insightful, authoritative content that addresses industry trends, challenges, and innovations.
In the B2B space, thought leadership is a growing content marketing play as it combines the success that influencer marketing has seen with the industry insights your audience is seeking.
Create Content Production Process
Developing a streamlined content production process is essential for maintaining a consistent and efficient content output. An effective way to accomplish this is through content splintering.
Content splintering involves breaking down larger pieces of content into smaller, more digestible pieces that can be shared across various owned media channels. This approach maximizes the reach and lifespan of your content.
A content splintering approach we are fans of includes creating a thought leadership podcast and distributing insights from the show into newsletters, blog content, YouTube videos, and social media posts.
This content should all be housed under a media brand distinct from your corporate brand so you have a little more wiggle room in creativity and so listeners don’t feel like they are being sold to each time they engage with your content.
Launch Content
Launching your content across multiple channels is crucial in maximizing its impact.
Ensure your content is present across all relevant channels where your target audience spends their time. This omni-channel approach creates multiple touch points, increasing the chances of engagement and conversion. This is another reason we are fans of content splintering and media brands– the distribution channels are planned before the main piece of content is even produced!
Measure Results
Measuring the performance of your owned media strategy is needed to understand its effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. Track metrics such as website traffic, engagement rates, lead generation, and conversion rates. Use these insights to refine your strategy and achieve better results over time.
The Difference Between Owned Media and Paid Media
While owned media is content you control, paid media involves paying to place your content on external sites and platforms. While effective, the cost of paid media is increasing quickly and brands are left spending large percentages of their budgets for ad slots.
A few examples of paid media include:
- Paid advertising on Google and social media platforms
- Sponsoring events
- Paying for airtime on TV or radios
Paid media is an important player in every marketing strategy, but it is eating up a lot of marketing budgets… and fast.
Investing in owned media that provides real value to the user–and using omni-channel distribution– is a great way to stay organically relevant on the same platforms. It keeps your brand top-of-mind without having to pay for top-of-feed placements.
The Difference Between Owned Media and Earned Media
Earned media is publicity gained through promotional efforts other than advertising, such as word-of-mouth and media coverage. It's a byproduct of your owned and paid media efforts but is not directly controllable.
Up Your Owned Media Game
For B2B companies, owned media is not just a marketing channel; it's a strategic asset that builds long-term relationships with your audience. Leveraging owned media effectively can set your brand apart, establishing a foundation of trust and authority in your industry.
Sweet Fish specializes in elevating B2B companies through comprehensive owned media strategies. We are a full-service media brand agency, so we handle everything from brand creation to content production and distribution. A few of our services include:
- White-glove podcast production (guest booking, editing, and more)
- Newsletter management (with guaranteed monthly downloads)
- Social media management
- Long and short-form video creation
Our owned media expertise ensures your brand's voice is heard loud and clear. Learn more about media brands, and why your B2B company needs to start one today.
Frequently Asked Owned Media Questions
What does a company’s owned media include?
A company's owned media encompasses its website, blog, mobile apps, email newsletters, lead generation content, physical mail, video content, podcasts, and social media presence.
What are the most used owned media?
Websites, blogs, and email newsletters are among the most utilized owned media channels, offering direct communication with the audience.