The purpose of this document is to outline our outlook about Earned, Owned, and Paid media. This document is for reference, and is not a document that outlines our strategy for each part of the media stack. This document was created December 6, 2021 by @Ben Grynol.
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In Marketing, there are three main buckets that media can fall within – Earned, Owned, and Paid media. Within each bucket, there are numerous derivatives and types of media that can be classified, and which will provide different benefits in the marketing funnel.
There isn't one way in which Earned, Owned and Paid media works since there are many different use cases for all types of media.
<aside> 🤳 Example
UGC (User Generated Content) is considered Earned Media. It can be created as organic content – a person writes a blog post about their experience, or it can be created as derivative content – a person shares a twitter thread about their learnings from a blog post that was written by Levels (which originated as owned media). There is a clear path where Owned Media can become Earned Media quite easily.
Paid Media can take many forms, one of which is boosting or promoting UGC (for example, running a Facebook ad with a clip of a YouTube review that one of our members made). Outright, UGC is not Paid Media, but it can be used for paid media (also referred to as performance marketing). When this is done, UGC can be used at any stage of the funnel – Awareness, Consideration, Conversion – all depending on the content and messaging behind the UGC that is being promoted.
The takeaway is that marketing, like many things, is nuanced.
There are so many things that can go right, and so many things that can change the outcome for performance marketing (from a ROI perspective). Some companies need to do it, (depending on the product / industry / business model), and other companies do it because they feel like they should do it since everyone else does it.
Ultimately, companies have to run a playbook for the type of business they have, the type of industry they are in, and the product that they offer. An Enterprise SaaS (Software as a Service) company in the Aerospace industry will need to take a much different approach to Earned, Owned, and Paid media than a DTC (Direct to Consumer) company in the Furniture industry.
Companies should take different approaches to Earned, Owned, and Paid Media.
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Different types of media can result in different outcomes, and will contribute to different stages of the marketing funnel. This document provides a high-level overview of Earned, Owned, and Paid media, as well as an overview of the marketing funnel – what it is and how it works.
Marketing uses storytelling to pull people into ideas that companies want to communicate to an audience. Advertising uses paid initiatives to hack attention and push ideas upon people, with the intent of getting them to do something. Marketing generally focuses on Owned Media (Brand Content), and Advertising generally focuses on Paid Media.
Marketing is about choice & influence. Advertising is about sales & persuasion.
Earned media is essentially any media or content that is created and driven from within a company's audience. The media can come in a variety of forms, including:
UGC (User-generated content) which showcases new media – photos, tweets, videos, podcasts, blog posts, product reviews & testimonials, press mentions and media stories
UGC which showcases reposted media – content that originates from the company, and is shared by a brand evangelist to their audience