Why Owned Media is the Key to Efficient Growth in 2023

Why Owned Media is the Key to Efficient Growth in 2023

Summarized by ChatGPT

As marketing tactics continue to evolve, businesses are beginning to realize that owned media is a more effective way of reaching their target audience. Owned media refers to the media channels that businesses own, such as their website, social media pages, email lists, and other digital assets. It allows businesses to build a direct relationship with their audience by serving them through content, digital programs, and events.

Owned media is all about building an intimate relationship with your audience, where they learn from you and are inspired by your content. In return, they provide their email address and subscribe to your brand, allowing you to hit them with more valuable content in the future. This exchange of value is essential for building a loyal audience that is more likely to convert into paying customers.

The Rise of Owned Media

As we enter 2023, businesses are becoming more focused on efficiency. The traditional marketing tactics of earned, paid, and owned media are still relevant, but paid media is becoming increasingly expensive and competitive. While paid leads tend to convert well, they don't always result in revenue, especially compared to other cohorts.

Many companies are beginning to rebel against paid media and are instead focusing on building their own branded content. For example, Airbnb has publicly stated that they've moved their search budget off of search and onto owned media, which has resulted in much more efficient growth.

Earned media, on the other hand, has become more challenging due to the ever-changing algorithms of social media platforms. Organic reach is beholden to an algorithm that businesses don't control, making it harder to get your story told and reach your audience. Search marketing is also becoming more competitive, making it harder to rank on search engines like Google.

The Importance of Owned Media

Businesses need to start thinking about these rented channels and how they can leverage paid media to build an owned audience. Building an owned audience is essential for building a direct relationship with your audience, where you can nurture, educate, inspire, and entertain them. Eventually, you can convert that audience base into revenue.

Over the past ten years, the B2B industry, especially for SaaS, has seen a golden era. Still, businesses need to start looking to other industries to see how they can improve their owned media strategy. The consumer media industry is an excellent example of how businesses can use rented channels like social media and YouTube to their advantage.

The consumer media industry has realized that when people hit their content through long-tail search or other channels, they are interested in learning more. They subscribe to hear more, learn more, and be fed more from that narrative or best practices that businesses are espousing. This model has proven to be effective, with an average conversion rate of 10% in the consumer media industry, compared to just 1.1% in the B2B industry.

The Opportunity for Businesses

The opportunity for businesses is to leverage owned media to build their audience, nurture that audience, and eventually convert them into paying customers. It's not about creating more content; it's about creating the right content that speaks to your audience and building a direct relationship with them.

To achieve this, businesses need to create a content strategy that focuses on creating high-quality, valuable content that speaks to their audience's pain points. They need to use the right keywords, optimize their content for search engines, and create content that is shareable on social media platforms.

Businesses also need to leverage email marketing to build their audience and nurture them over time. They can do this by creating valuable lead magnets, using email segmentation to send targeted content, and automating their email campaigns.

Finally, businesses need to use social media to build their audience and drive traffic to their website. They can do this by creating valuable content that