Earned, Owned and Paid Media: Using Them Effectively in Today’s Digital Marketplace
Lawyers and law firms have been using different kinds of content to reach and engage with clients and prospects since long before “content marketing” was a concept and anyone aspired to be a “thought leader.” The analog version of content marketing included sending out newsletters and alerts, offering resources such as white papers, authoring articles in outside publications and speaking at conferences and events. Add in some public relations efforts and perhaps some (tasteful, please!) advertising, and you’ve achieved the trifecta of marketing: owned media, earned media and paid media.
Enter the digital revolution, which dramatically reshaped the way that lawyers and firms market themselves. The digitization of marketing, advertising and communications gave lawyers and firms more—and more sophisticated—ways to reach, engage with and influence their various audiences. It’s also contributed to a market ecosystem that is, at times, mind-bogglingly complex, increasingly competitive and crowded, and potentially riskier than ever.
The good news is that while our three pillars of marketing have also been greatly expanded (and in some ways the lines between them blurred a bit), they remain solid, fundamental elements of good marketing strategy, despite the increasing complexities of the digital marketing ecosystem.
Owned media: making the most of your digital real estate
Owned media refers to the channels and platforms that you or your firm directly controls. Traditionally, these assets have included newsletters, email, websites and blogs. As digital platforms have proliferated and marketing technology has advanced, the category has expanded to include channels such as microsites, mobile apps, video platforms, podcasts, and social media profiles and pages.
In essence, your owned media is your own digital real estate, where you (mostly) control the content creation, distribution and engagement. I say mostly because posting on social media, for example, involves giving over a measure of control both to the platform and its algorithms as to who sees your content and to those who read, respond and share your content. But what you give up in terms of less-than-complete control over your messaging may be balanced by your ability to reach, influence and engage with far larger and more varied audiences.
The direct line of communication—one to an audience of many—of owned channels provides you with a lot of power and opportunity to build and shape your brand identity, establish your expertise and credibility, and foster trust relationships with clients and prospects. Digitization has also made owned media more customizable than ever before, enabling you to leverage multiple channels to deliver more personalized marketing by sharing valuable content and engaging with different segments of your audience. For these reasons, owned media should be the bedrock of your content marketing program.
Earned media: harnessing the power of your communities
Earned media includes unpaid visibility on third party-controlled channels—traditionally often the result of PR efforts and (less often) organic media attention. Analog earned media has included press coverage or other publicity, as well as when lawyers serve as a source for articles written by reporters or other writers, or author contributed thought leadership. Digitization and the growth of social media platforms, online forums and review sites have expanded earned media to include social media interactions—likes, shares and comments, and social media mentions (when others talk about you unprompted), which some put into a separate category called shared media—as well as endorsements, reviews and recognitions. Earned media is about effectively leveraging the power of your communities to expand your reach, boost your visibility and enhance your reputation.
With earned media comes some risk. Unlike owned media, where the content generally flows in one direction (from you to your audience) and you have the most control over the messaging, earned media in the digital era can look more like a multiple-party conversation, especially on social media. You can’t control the entirety of the messaging because it’s community-generated, a combination of the content you put out and the reactions/interactions it creates across the various communities it reaches. Review sites and other places where users can post and comment about you give you even less control over the content and messaging.
Positive interactions, social shares, reviews and comments can significantly enhance your visibility, credibility and reputation; negative mentions and interactions can do significant damage. This potential to quickly lose control of your messaging, and the propensity for content to “go viral” on social media, also makes monitoring your accounts and your communities, and responding in a timely and appropriate manner critical.
Paid media: investing to amplify your reach and engagement
Paid media is perhaps the easiest to define because it includes the element of payment or investment related to your messaging. Paid media can include paid advertising and promotional efforts — traditional advertising such as print ads, billboards, radio and television ads, and direct mail, as well as targeted digital or social media ads, sponsored or pay-to-publish content, and direct email campaigns. It can also include paying to increase the reach of your content, such as through search engine marketing (SEM).
Paid media, especially digital advertising, offers sophisticated targeting capabilities, allowing lawyers and firms to reach and engage with audiences defined by specific demographics, interests and behaviors. The obvious downsides to paid media are the expense and the complexity of the evolving digital ecosystem. Paid media can also be challenging to implement effectively in competitive and cluttered markets.
Getting the most out of your investment requires that you have a good understanding of your audiences and their platforms of choice, clear objectives, a well-defined strategy, and identifiable and trackable metrics for success, as well as the willingness to consistently monitor and adjust your paid media program.
Digitization has given lawyers and law firms vastly expanded channels over which to reach and engage with their clients and prospects. It has also softened the boundaries between owned, earned and paid media. These categories no longer function as rigid silos, but as interconnected — and interdependent — components of a holistic marketing strategy. In other words, while each type of media, on its own, has limited reach and impact, integrating them will deliver the most effective results. Owned media such as blog posts, alerts, videos or podcasts will have better traction if you can leverage earned media (community engagement across your social media platforms, for example) to get them in front of bigger and more varied audiences. Earned media, in turn, depends on a robust owned media strategy that consistently generates new content across channels to attract the attention of those who will amplify your messaging. And paid media will be more effective with your target audiences if it’s supported and complemented by that same robust owned media, amplified by your communities through earned media.
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