Paid Media is not the only weapon at your disposal. You also probably have a website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter profile, and other digital assets just lying in wait to capture prospective customers’ interest. We call these assets Owned Media, and they are driving the Content Marketing revolution.
Owned Media
Owned Media encompasses all of the marketing assets that belong to your company. These include your:
Catalogs
Direct mailers
In-store circulars
Product packaging
Signage (fleet vehicles, in-store, etc.)
Blog
Email messages
Facebook content
Instagram content
LinkedIn content
Mobile apps
Pinterest content
Podcasts
SMS messages
Twitter content
Videos
Website
Whitepapers
YouTube channel
The lure of Owned Media is control. Because there’s no network or middle-man with Owned Media, you can do exactly what you want with it. Outside of production and maintenance costs, you don’t have to pay any third parties for distribution. You put a sign up in your store, and customers can see it. You publish a podcast, and it’s available for the world to listen to. You launch a website, and someone halfway around the world can visit it to learn about your products and services.
Of course, the mere act of creating Owned Media does not ensure that there will be an audience for it. Look at the list of Owned Media again; the left column includes content that comes with some built-in audience based on physical corporate assets (stores, vehicles, etc.). However, you still need to buy or build a direct mail database for your catalogs and a distribution system for your circulars, products, and signage to reach SHOPPERS in store.
The mere act of creating Owned Media does not ensure that there will be an audience for it.
By contrast, the right column lists Owned Media that first comes to the attention of SEEKERS via search engines or other online discovery tools. Owned Media’s first opportunity, therefore, is to help you grow your proprietary SEEKER audience: the folks looking for the types of products, services, information, or entertainment you provide. This is why SEO and Content Marketing are kissin’ cousins; they ensure your content is indexed by search engines, found by mobile device users, and browsed easily by visitors.
Search-engine-optimized Owned Media should deliver a steady stream of SEEKERS; however, these are people who come and go as they please. To get more value from Owned Media, you need to take every opportunity to convert each SEEKER into a JOINER. In so doing, you transform fleeting VISITORS into on-demand proprietary audiences of SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, and FOLLOWERS—audiences you can access in the future with the push of a button.
Chances are that you’re already using your Owned Media to build SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, and FOLLOWERS through tactics like:
An email opt-in form on your website or at point-of-sale
Facebook, Twitter, and social media sharing buttons on your website
Promotion of your mobile app(s) via your website or social media
Social media widgets that expose SEEKERS to social content
A lead capture form on a white paper or other downloadable resource
SMS calls to action at events or in-store
While each of these definitely helps build your proprietary audiences, very few companies have maximized the full potential of their Owned Media. In fact, our SFF report RETAIL TOUCHPOINTS EXPOSED highlighted that of the 100 fastest-growing retailers in the United States, only 2 percent were using in-store signage to drive consumers to opt-in to email or SMS communications.7
Owned Media should provide a home field advantage. It’s where you’re supposed to play your A-game and engage consumers in ways that maximize their value to your organization. One of the folks who most fully understands the importance of building JOINER audiences is one of Owned Media’s biggest advocates: Joe Pulizzi (@JoePulizzi). As founder of the Content Marketing Institute (@CMIContent), the Content Marketing World conference, and Chief Content Marketer magazine, many rightly refer to Joe as “The Godfather of Content Marketing.” According to Joe:
Content Marketing is owning—as opposed to renting—media. It’s a marketing process to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating content in order to change or enhance a consumer behavior.8
If that sounds familiar, it should. The justification for Content Marketing is exactly the same as for Proprietary Audience Development: to own rather than rent attention. It’s just that the focus with Content Marketing is on developing Owned Media, whereas our focus is to build proprietary audiences to consume and amplify your Owned Media.
Content Marketing and Proprietary Audience Development are really just opposite sides of the same coin. One provides the content for consumption, and one provides the audience that consumes. They are modern marketing’s Ouroboros, interrelated jobs that never end. They just keep feeding each other—more content, more audiences—in order to serve the company’s bottom line.a