Earned and paid media are both effective ways of nurturing leads and converting them into happy customers. However, each has a diverse role to play in achieving different objectives. In the continuously evolving public relations (PR) landscape, comprehending the difference in the kind of impact created by earned and paid media is extremely important. The key to ensuring marketing success for your brand is to strike the right balance between your earned and paid media strategies.
But before you proceed with playing the winning shot you need to be clear on the marketing objectives that are to be accomplished. For instance, it could be just brand awareness and customer acquisition. On the other hand, it could be lead generation for which you would have to switch up your strategy. Once the marketing objective is clearly defined, synergising earned and paid media is the next step in fortifying the brand name.
What is Earned Media?
Cultivated over time, an earned media strategy involves encouraging customer engagement or brand awareness through organic means. Social media, brand mentions on news outlets, blogs, and customer review forums are just some of the examples. This form of media is ‘earned’ based on your brand's efforts — prompt service delivery, high-quality products, exceptional after-sale customer service, and overall positive experiences.
Think of it as word-of-mouth marketing, where you are able to create brand awareness and build market credibility based on authentically favourable opinions. In today’s digital age, customer taste buds are fickle and preferences evolve quickly. Thus, the power of reliable recommendations and extensive coverage cannot be ignored.
Earned media demands considerable time and effort to bridge gaps between your brand and its organic user base. Therefore, this early ‘slow-burn’ nature of earned media presents a perfect opportunity to adopt a paid media strategy.
What is Paid Media?
Paid media involves paying for advertising your brand. It includes sponsored social media posts, banner advertisements, advertorials, affiliate marketing, paid search engine results, and other types of paid promotions like influencer marketing. This form of media guarantees reaching your target audience with the right message at the right time. The advantage of paid media is the control that it offers. You have the freedom to decide the content, the format, and the audience! But the freedom comes at a price.
The flipside of paid media is that even though it offers visibility and outreach, it does not necessarily provide credibility. Most customers are aware of paid campaigns, and they treat them with a level of cynicism. That is why paid media alone cannot replace the credibility-building power of earned media.
Finding the right mix of earned and paid media is crucial to maximising brand value.
The Importance of Striking the Balance
In the PR realm, both earned and paid media have diverse yet complementary purposes. To build a balanced approach a smart mix of both drives awareness and strengthens your relationship with your audience.
Building Credibility with Earned Media
Credibility is one of the strongest facets of PR, and earned media is the most effective way to acquire it. When customers or the media choose to speak positively about your brand, it connotes that your brand resonates with the audience's tastes and preferences.
For instance, a reputed journalist writes a news column about your brand’s innovation story, or a celebrity influencer praises your product on social media.
Campaigns run through paid media have a short life span. A news article that has covered your brand story could continue to build value long after a paid advertisement has vanished. For sustainable growth and a positive brand image, earned media is a long-term valuable asset.
Big brands are built over some time. As they say, Rome was not built in a day, newer brands need a robust PR strategy to gain customer trust. This is where paid media steps in.
Increasing Visibility with Paid Media
For brands willing to showcase their products or services during a set period, paid media is the way forward. During a product launch or festival sales event where time is of the essence, paid media allows precise targeting and segmentation options based on customer demographics, location, and interests.
Moreover, paid media is a valuable tool for amplifying earned media. For example, if your brand receives a positive product review or great media coverage, you can use paid promotions to spread the message to a larger audience.
Combining Earned and Paid Media: The ‘Jai’ and ‘Veeru’ in a PR Strategy
To craft a successful PR strategy, brands must strike a fine balance between earned and paid media.
Key pointers to take note of:
Before deep-diving into either media, ensure your brand has a compelling story that resonates with your target audience. Remember! Earned media always thrive on authentic, share-worthy stories.
Use paid media to make your stories go viral. Social media campaigns, Google ads, and paid influencer marketing are great ways to elevate and amplify your brand narrative.
Monitoring earned and paid media efforts helps you tweak your PR strategy as needed. Engagement, conversion rates, return on ad spend, impressions, reach and brand mentions are some of the key metrics used to measure the effectiveness of your approach.
A seasoned PR strategy smartly balances earned media's credibility-building power and paid media's virality-building potential.
In today’s competitive media-conscious environment, it’s the brands that master this balance that truly thrive.
Psst! This blog was created after a lot of thought by a real person. #NoGenerativeAI
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