Where will you communicate with your audience?
As with the other components of your communication plan, your overarching goals and objectives need to drive your media mix choices.
Each media channel is a specific strategy for your communication objectives. Like your objectives, each channel should have a quantifiable target.
Ideally, you will have a blend of Paid, Earned, Owned, and Sh
As with the other components of your communication plan, your overarching goals and objectives need to drive your media mix choices.
Each media channel is a specific strategy for your communication objectives. Like your objectives, each channel should have a quantifiable target.
Ideally, you will have a blend of Paid, Earned, Owned, and Shared channels in your mix, but the ratio will depend on your available resources and your unique business situation. Regardless of your combination, your Analytics platform is the most important "channel" in your mix.
Here's a quick list of some media channels you might include in your Media Mix:
There are countless combinations for your Media Mix, but Analytics will be your most important consideration. Analytics is a feedback channel for your entire communication "ecosystem," which can be used to optimize your communication and market offerings. As your historical data grows, so will its value to your company. Your Analytics owner needs will synthesize data into digestible reports that tell the story of your business.
Without a reporting platform in place, your team won't be able to identify which communication efforts (channels, messages, offers, branding elements, promotions) are driving the best results for your organizational goals. In addition, your team won't be able to optimize its channel efforts. A single reporting platform won't be able to track all your paid, earned, owned, and shared endeavors, but it should be one of your top media channel considerations.
Many of the channel examples listed above can be tracked in a single analytics platform. In addition, some can be integrated with each other. Still, the tracking protocols will vary between platforms, and the integrations can be complex, but the reward is data-driven business growth.
Paid media is another way of saying advertising. It's also associated with most "Outbound" marketing strategies. Not long ago, scheduling an advertisement for a magazine, newspaper, radio, or television spot required weeks, if not months, of creative and media planning. You had to "compete" for the ad space. Today, we can set up a YouTube
Paid media is another way of saying advertising. It's also associated with most "Outbound" marketing strategies. Not long ago, scheduling an advertisement for a magazine, newspaper, radio, or television spot required weeks, if not months, of creative and media planning. You had to "compete" for the ad space. Today, we can set up a YouTube ad in a matter of minutes. Media platforms like Facebook/Instagram, Amazon, Google, Yahoo!, Spotify, and Microsoft make self-service advertising easy.
"Traditional advertising" options still exist, but they're usually not an attractive option for resource-strapped organizations. Today, most medium-sized businesses prefer the ease of online advertising platforms, which typically have detailed reporting. Modern advertising options, like Google Ads, allow you to test and report on all your creative elements: copy, display images, landing pages, offers, etc. Identifying which creative variations drive the most conversions, as opposed to clicks, is a powerful insight. This type of detailed reporting isn't available for something like a radio spot or a magazine insertion. Traditional advertising channels can still play a role in your media mix if your business situation calls for them, but newer options will likely be a better fit. A prudent approach for traditional advertising is to test your creative variations online, then use the best-performing for your traditional buys.
Not all online advertising options are the same. Google Search Ads and Facebook Ads are fundamentally different from the viewer's perspective. Google Search serves your ad when someone searches for highly relevant information. Facebook serves your ad when someone is consuming related content. These are both considered online advertising channels, but they are fundamentally different. And, these are just two examples.
In addition to the different online advertising channels, each offers various ad types for different scenarios, like product listing (shopping) campaigns, video campaigns, search campaigns, location campaigns, display campaigns, and more. Chances are, your organizational goals warrant the use of some of these options, but deciding which to pick is a strategic decision based on knowledge of the advertising industry.
Knowing when to use a specific ad channel based on its utility and audience is very different than mastery of the day-to-day management tactics. For this reason, a Google Ads expert should not necessarily be considered an Amazon Ads expert. To make matters more complex, your first consideration with any online ad buy is reporting. But, this doesn't happen automatically. Your ability to view post-click performance metrics for your ad buy is dependent on your adherence to the correct tracking protocols. And each platform is unique in this regard.
The online advertising industry is still in its nascent phase in many ways. It's constantly changing. Yes, it's easy to jump in and set up an ad, but a novice can easily spend much more than intended and get nothing in return. Vagary can help. While we may not be day-to-day management experts with every online advertising option, we are keenly familiar with the most popular. And, we can certainly help you oversee any outsourced management of a channel. More importantly, we will consult with you about which specific ad channels are the best fit for your unique business situation. Ultimately, the decision to pursue Paid, Earned, Owned, or Shared media opportunities should stem from the overall business goals, not familiarity with a specific channel.
Saying that social media platforms redefined media would be an understatement. I will preface this next section by noting that the various tactics you can undertake with social media or community platforms won't all fit nicely under a single "Paid," "Earned," "Shared," or "Owned" umbrella. Some activities might fall under the "Earned" med
Saying that social media platforms redefined media would be an understatement. I will preface this next section by noting that the various tactics you can undertake with social media or community platforms won't all fit nicely under a single "Paid," "Earned," "Shared," or "Owned" umbrella. Some activities might fall under the "Earned" media category, but others should be considered "Shared" or even "Paid." There will be overlap, but the distinctions are important to understand conceptually.
"Owned" media strategies are somewhat new; generally, they are considered inbound because they use content to lure visitors (in). These options were created by the Internet and social media platforms. The key benefit of owned media is control—you control the channel and the content. An example is your website or a Facebook page. Today, your owned media will likely make up the core of your communication ecosystem, collectively your "platform."
A common analogy for owned media is a wheel's hub. Spokes (or links) will connect to your hub from other sites, partners, industry pages, or otherwise. But this is a simple analogy. Sometimes, a company's Facebook page will have more visitors and rank higher for searches than its website. The idea is the same: creating quality branded content for your communication "hub" should precede any attempt to pay for traffic.
Modern options like Facebook or Google My Business make owned media page creation easy, but this is a double-edged sword. "Free" channels like these are tempting to self-manage, but you can lose years of work cultivating partners and an audience with a single Tweet. Deciding which owned channels to pursue and who will manage them are different decisions. However, for both answers, you need to consider the future reputation of your business. Whether today or fifty years ago, content is king. But media has changed; high-quality owned content is better today.
Traditionally, any favorable media exposure was limited and highly coveted. "Earned" media exposure was considered the result of your public relations (PR) efforts. Positive mentions of your brand in a newspaper, magazine, or otherwise rarely happened by accident. While these categorically weren't "Paid" advertisements, professionals labored many hours developing relationships with media contacts and generating press releases for this type of exposure, which was considered more trustworthy than advertising. Modern PR still exists but looks more like earned media.
Cultivating relationships is crucial whether discussing earned media or traditional public relations. Many influencers, industry bloggers, and experts create specialized content platforms with larger audiences than many conventional publications. Most won't be suitable for your situation, but the amount of professionals keeps growing. Those that are a good fit will likely have an audience similar to yours. It may be that your business has something to trade in exchange for positive exposure on their platform. Or, you may choose to sponsor their channel. Regardless, pursuing an earned or paid strategy in this manner requires a vetting process for each potential partner to ensure they are appropriate. In other words, you should never rush into a relationship.
In our opinion, one of the best options for positive brand content isn't a media channel at all. Sponsoring teams, events, or causes can be fantastic branding opportunities, but coordinating this type of activity can be resource-intensive. There are many moving parts, but if correctly done, the benefit comes in Paid, Earned, Owned, and Shared media.
Due to the many ways that online media platforms enable communication and partnership, we generally recommend a high level of focus on branded content first. But, as previously stated, the channels you choose to build out for your media mix should have robust reporting that enables analytic business growth. As you can see, there are many considerations. Vagary will help you create a media mix for your unique business situation.
Manage by objectives.
Consider all your audiences.
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