Powerful and smart digital marketing strategies form part of the basis of building a successful business. Without putting a considerable amount of time into planning your digital marketing campaigns, you won’t see the engagement you’re after. That is where digital media comes in.
Facilitating digital media through the right channels and converting content can help businesses generate engagement and strengthen their brand – some of the main objectives of digital marketing.
Before being able to leverage digital media and run successful campaigns, you need understand the different types that exist. Here are the 3 types of digital media:
1. Owned Media
This type of media involves any media that is directly controlled by your brand. These could be things like your website, blogs (content marketing), social media channels and even email marketing. All the content that you publish on these channels is yours and you have the ability to change this content as you desire.
Owned media works by building off the pre-existing relationship that your brand has with its customers, as well as attracting new prospects that are further down the funnel.
A huge benefit of owned media is longevity. Where ads will only run for so long, the organic content of owned media will continue to do what it is designed to do for a very long time, provided it is updated and active.
2. Paid Media
When most people think of advertising, they are thinking of paid media. Out of all three different types of digital media, paid media is the most traditional in the sense that it involves all marketing channels that you invest in to get an audience.
Examples of paid media are: search engine ads, video ads, social media ads, print ads, radio ads etc.
The main goal behind paid media is to reach more audiences than you could organically. This form of media enables your content to reach a large-scale audience through paid promotion and is ideal for both established and new businesses.
3. Earned Media
Earned media can be seen as all the media a company generates through word of mouth in the online world. Whether it be content or a social media mention, this form of media was dubbed “earned” because you cannot buy it, you have to work for it.
Earned media is acquired through strategic and innovative practices in the PR, social media and Search Engine Optimisation space.
Cultivating this form of media can be an extremely effective and credible form of media due to its organic nature.
While each of the three types of digital media have their advantages and disadvantages, it is not about choosing which one will work best for you. It is about harnessing their power in unison and not using them in isolation. They each contain great potential, but combined, the benefits the three types of digital media can offer your brand are truly noteworthy and well worth the investment of time, effort, and money.
