Marketing is more than just advertising.
As marketers, we know that marketing comes in many forms, far more than the TV commercials, display ads, and social media sponsored posts consumers typically associate with marketing. In fact, there is a whole side of marketing that does not rely on such paid efforts but on the channels a brand owns and operates.
This is organic marketing, and it is equally as important to your marketing success as paid marketing.
Organic marketing, sometimes referred to as owned marketing or owned media marketing, is a set of customer-focused strategies and tactics that are implemented through your own brand channels, also known as your owned media.
These owned channels include your website, app, blog, social media accounts, email, SMS, forums and any other media that you own and have complete control over.
Organic marketing follows a pull, or inbound, marketing strategy. This means it gets your messages out to the market and increases demand for products or services because of the inherent value you possess. In other words, it helps pull people towards your brand as opposed to pushing products onto customers.
Let’s take a look at a number of the frequently used owned media marketing channels that brands have at their disposal.
Owned media is a term often used in conjunction with paid media and earned media, but what is the difference?
Paid Media
Paid media includes any marketing efforts that you need to pay for, including paid ads, retargeting, native advertising, influencer marketing, sponsored content, and external events or conferences. Paid marketing adopts a push strategy; it pushes products and services out to customers.
Earned Media
Earned media is third-party endorsement or promotion of your brand achieved through your own efforts. By consistently driving value through your owned media, you can attract PR, customer ratings or reviews, word of mouth (digital and in-person), shares and retweets, interviews, and guest posts.
Earned media adopts a pull strategy and is arguably the most valuable as you can’t pay for it and you can’t create it yourself.
Owned media and organic marketing offer a number of significant benefits:
Having control over your owned channels means you can control the entire customer experience. This means you can leverage your owned media assets to grow long-term relationships. Plus, you don’t have to worry about whether or not an ad was seen.
Because you do not have to pay publishers and web owners to market for you, you can drive down customer acquisition costs. Once these channels are set up, the only investment needed is your own time and resources – or any outsourcing.
Original content that ranks for long-tail keywords and targeted social media posts can expand the reach of your brand faster than other forms of media.
Because of the variety and versatility of owned marketing channels, you can communicate in different formats to suit your audience. For example, you can create different types of content and use different text and media.
As opposed to paid and earned media, which might disappear after each campaign or get lost online, owned media doesn’t have an expiry date. You have your channels as long as you want them and can keep your message in position indefinitely.
While organic marketing offers multiple benefits, to be successful, you need to be targeted, deliberate, and focus on the right people and channels.
No organic marketing strategy will succeed without the setting of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goals. Goals that specifically outline what you want to achieve overall, and for each campaign, can act as your guiding light and a benchmark for your efforts.
To ensure your owned marketing efforts hit the mark, you need data. After all, the more you know about your audience, the more targeted your messaging can be. Your owned media is a valuable source of first-party data and therefore, drill into it with machine learning analytical software for accurate customer insights.
Use these data-driven insights to create highly-personalized brand experiences at every touchpoint – from your website landing pages to your email campaigns. AI-driven tools can help you understand user intent and interests for hyper-personalized experiences that go beyond action-based interactions.
To deliver truly personalized experiences, you not only need to hit customers with the right message, but also need to hit them at the right time. Leverage AI tools to help you map cross-screen journeys enabling timely communication for maximum impact.
If you know your customers, organic marketing can be extremely effective for delivering personalized experiences. However, don’t expect immediate results. Organic marketing is a long game, but it is one worth playing.
Do you want to boost your owned marketing efforts? Here are 5 ways to capitalize on your owned channels.