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Owned media’s importance in the marketing mix is undeniable.
In fact, 53% of marketeers say that their in-house blog content is their top marketing priority.
Why?
Well, your business’ owned content is the sharpest tool for building relationships with your target audience. Likewise, businesses that don’t incorporate owned media into their digital marketing strategy fail to foster brand engagement from industry influencers and stakeholders alike. But before we get into the pitter patter of owned media matter, it’s important to acknowledge that a healthy mixture of all 4 pillars of content marketing — namely paid, owned, earned, and shared media — to create a bulletproof digital marketing strategy.
Nevertheless, owned media should be the digital marketing foundation that informs how you act on your other marketing channels.
With this in mind, we’ve decided to delve deeply in the world of owned media, exploring its different forms and how to leverage it effectively to reach your growth goals.
In this post you will learn:
-What is owned media?
-Examples of owned media
-How to create a successful owned media strategy
-How Red Bull leverages owned media to appeal to its risk-loving audience
Let’s start with a definition of owned media.
What is owned media?
Owned media includes all content that your company has created and is responsible for.
There’s a variety of content that falls under this category. Here are a few examples of owned media :
- Blog
- Website
- Video
- Infographic
- Podcast
- Ebook
- Case study
- White paper
5 steps for creating a successful owned media strategy
1. Align content production with business objectives
Before you do anything with your owned media, make sure you’ve clearly laid out your goals as a business.
By making your goals SMART — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based, your roadmap to success is clear. Saying that you want to “boost your profits”, for instance, means that you won’t know what success looks like. Increasing your net profit by 10% in 6 months, on the other hand, shows that you’ve nailed down your KPIs and better understand how to use resources productively to achieve your goals.
2. Know your audience
Creating a buyer persona helps you to identify your target customer and choose relevant platforms, types of owned media, and determine valuable and relevant content accordingly.
Apple is one of the tech trailblazers for identifying and incorporating a carefully considered buyer persona into its marketing strategy for each of its products. Its target audience is elegantly laid out in its website content — tech-interested individuals who have a high disposable income and want electronics that are both stylish and functionally cutting edge.
If you’re at a loss for creating high-quality owned media content for your own target audience, here’s some top tips to follow:
- Identify your audience’s issues and solve them
- Demonstrate your industry expertise
- Know the purpose of each piece of content
- Do some keyword research
- Build a narrative that your audience can follow
3. Analyze existing content
If you’ve got a website, you’ve got some owned media content. Now it’s time to put it under a microscope and evaluate whether it aligns with your brand’s messaging.
Ask yourself — Does my owned media content reflect how I want my company to be seen?
If not, it’s time to take a few steps back and do your brand building homework.
Once you’ve nailed down your brand identity, you’re ready to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your existing content.
Which content is best for lead generation? Which has the highest engagement? Which has the least? Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics can give great insights into your most popular content and user engagement.
4. Create a content calendar
After aligning your existing content, the next step is to start thinking about new content. Create a posting schedule that assigns clear responsibilities (who’s the content creator, who’s the editor, who publishes the content across your different marketing channels). Also, researching the best time of day to post, and keeping frequency of your posts consistent, means your audience can rely on when new content is created.
Remember that it’s not just about attracting new clients, but also keeping the existing ones happy. Keep your content fresh by exploring new topics, and show you’re in the loop with the latest industry developments.
5. Monitor your success
Lastly, monitoring your content performance indicates whether your strategy is paying engagement dividends or lost to the blackhole of unread and uncared for internet resources. Always keep analyzing and testing which content is getting the most engagement and update your content calendar based on the results. It’s an essential practice to constantly evolve and tweak your strategy.
Useful metrics to evaluate your content:
- Number of backlinks
- Number of conversions
- Average time spent on page
- Bounce rate
- CTR and social media shares
How Red Bull leverages owned media to appeal to its risk-loving audience
RedBull has built an entire media empire around its product: an energy drink. It has successfully connected extreme sports to its energy drink with a mix of owned media content that appeals to its audience’s love of adrenaline and high-level performance.
RedBull’s youtube channel, for example, has curated a host of video content which broadcasts sporting events and mini-documentaries about incredible extreme-sport acts. As a result, RedBull has created a community of over 9 million Youtube subscribers and is even launching its own TV channel.
Wrapping Up
As owned media continues to gain importance not just for B2C, but also B2B companies and startups as well, it’s high time to invest in a strategy that puts pens to paper, readies the microphones, and gets the cameras rolling.
When done right, a comprehensive owned media strategy can be the driving force behind your company’s digital growth. Likewise, your in-house content can be what distinguishes you from your competitors, and the perfect vehicle to show your industry capabilities.
And why stop there? Once your in-house content is up to scratch, you can leverage digital PR to win valuable earned media and amplify your exposure to a wider target audience, whilst building brand loyalty and trust.
