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Owned media gives you control
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The changing media landscape
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Marketing opportunities are shifting
If you don’t already have a well-developed ‘owned media’ content strategy, now is the time to build one.
Companies’ marketing efforts for years focused on generating ‘earned media’ coverage. They hoped that by sending out press releases, schmoozing journalists and hosting events they’d garner some exposure in the print or TV news – or, in the modern era, attract a customer review or social media mention.
Such earned media publicity remains powerful.
Today’s consumers are heavily influenced by family and friend recommendations, and reviews they read or see online. Earned media, because it comes from a third party, bestows that magic dust of credibility.
Problem is you have little to no control over whether your efforts will be picked up, or what messaging may result. Most press releases end up in the bin. And that prized five-star Google review could well be a one-star review in someone else’s hands.
Owned media gives you control
Owned media offers an alternative to the cost of paid advertising, or the uncertainty (and sometimes fruitless effort) of pursuing earned media coverage.
Owned media content and platforms, such as company newsletters, YouTube channels, social media accounts or blogs posted on your corporate website:
- Are directly controlled by your business.
- Allow you to determine the messaging and publication timing.
- Have no direct cost for distribution.
Unless you’re a big name influencer, your owned media content may have limited reach. Crucially though it allows you to control your promotional fate: you decide on the content message, and when, where and how to publish it.
The changing media landscape
This control – having an outlet for your marketing efforts – has never been more important.
A recent article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, using figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), reported that the number of journalist jobs in the UK fell year-on-year by nearly 43% in 2024. Average earnings for journalists saw the largest drop (-23.3% year-on-year) among all professions in the UK covered by the ONS. Newspaper editors ranked in 8th worst place (-6.2%). PR and communication directors were in 10th (-4.3%).
A similar picture is playing out in the media and PR industries around the world.
Press Gazette analysis found there were around 4,000 publicly announced or reported journalism redundancies and layoffs across newspaper, news broadcaster and digital media businesses in 2024 – including at the BBC, Associated Press, ABC News, CNN, Business Insider, Buzzfeed and product reviews site Reviewed. At least 8,000 journalism jobs disappeared in North America and the UK in 2023.
The latest cuts come on the back of decades of layoffs that have decimated the industry and call into question the viability of a journalism career. Many are fleeing for greener pastures. Other would-be journalists will be deterred from even entering the field.
And the landscape for marketers is changing with it.
Marketing opportunities are shifting
When I was a newsletter editor at the turn of the millennium, the revenues for my publication were split pretty equally between reader subscriptions and advertising. The economics of that model have since been upended.
As traditional newspapers and magazines (with rare exceptions like the New York Times) have found, readers are no longer so willing to pay for their content. Readerships have dwindled and with them subscription fees. Because the publications are no longer reaching the same number of eyeballs, advertisers have deserted them too. Hence the dwindling ranks of journalists and their pay – and the shrinking opportunity for marketers and PR/communications professionals to generate that earned media coverage.
It may be chicken or egg, whether owned media is undercutting the need for paid advertising and earned media exposure, or the changing media environment is increasing the importance of a dynamic owned media strategy that gives companies a better chance to be heard.
Either way, companies will increasingly need an owned media content marketing mix, populated with a steady pipeline of materials, if they want to get their message out into the world.