Sometimes marketing terminology does more to confuse people than it helps. For instance, I was sitting in a business meeting recently and was asked how much Earned Media would cost. Um, earned media is free because it is made up of social media engagement (likes, shares, comments), word-of-mouth recommendations, publicity, etc. I think what my customer meant was what did Paid Media cost – advertising, as an example. The poor guy in the meeting had his terms confused, but it may not be all his fault. In the digital age we live in, it is fairly easy for one channel of marketing to cross the other and blur the lines between the two.

Let me try to clear up three channels of marketing. They are Paid Media, Owned Media and Earned Media. Paid Media is commonly referred to as advertising. As the name implies, it is any promotion of your brand where you are paying a fee to place it in a marketing medium. Owned Media is any promotion of your brand that your business has total control over. For instance, you may have a sign in the front of your building. You control what is on the sign. You have brochures, a website, a social media page or a blog. You have total control over the content of these mediums. Earned Media is what others are saying about your brand. Unlike Paid Media and Owned Media, this is totally out of your control. People may say great things about you or they may say horrible things. This is where your reputation is in the balance with consumers.

There was a time when the three marketing channels were very well defined. For instance, paid media meant you were advertising in one of the three major media distribution channels (TV, radio, and print). However, the digital age opened up a lot more opportunities and blurred the lines between the three. For instance, if you post something on social media, it is Owned Media, correct? But what if you pay to boost your post? Now it is Paid Media. If I post content on my website with key words so my SEO is attracting organic searches to the post, but at the same time I do a Google Ads campaign, all the "likes” I get for the post organically would be Earned Media, but the paid search "likes” would be Paid Media, correct? You see where someone could get confused.

Marketing experts will tell you the best approach in marketing is to gain a balance between Paid Media and Owned Media to get a positive response in Earned Media because getting a positive response is where a lot of modern marketing plans stop. However, I would challenge you to take a step beyond the three marketing channels. The bottom line in marketing is not to just get people to engage with your brand, it is to buy it. Earned Media is important, yes. But gaining the sale is much more important. How you get there really depends upon how your target market responds to both Paid Media and Owned Media. The only way you will know is to take two actions: Ask them and test what you hear with your marketing. In other words, test and verify your marketing. Measure what you market.

In today’s world of marketing, where digital is king, you can get lost in all the terminology and totally miss the mark. The bottom line of marketing is to draw customers in for a sale. All the rest is just steps towards that end goal. Marketing channels have their place in your plans if they are leading to a sale. However, if your marketing plan is leaving you short of reaching the bottom line, get away from your blurry lines and change what you are doing.