What is Content Marketing?

Know the difference between paid media, earned media and owned media

Audiences have turned their backs on traditional marketing tactics. They increasingly find advertisements on the radio and TV annoying and interruptive. Online advertisements are even worse, and the ads that aren’t annoying are often missed completely because people are focused on the content, not the ads.

Now Google is penalizing the practitioners of traditional search engine optimization (SEO) techniques by updating its algorithms to make search results more relevant to its users. Because of this, SEO is evolving to provide that relevant content potential customers might be looking for online.

That evolution has lead to content marketing -- the creation and distribution of relevant and valuable content with the objective of attracting, educating and engaging a target audience, and the goal that they’ll eventually become customers.

While content marketing is supplanting both advertising and SEO, its best practitioners are PR professionals. Public relations firms have been creating content for their clients for decades with the goal of placing that content in the media.

Of the three kinds of media available to businesses –

1. paid media
2. earned media
3. owned media

Paid media – advertisements and sponsorships and, though easily controlled, lacks credibility – one of the hallmarks of good PR and content marketing.

Earned media – media coverage generated from PR efforts – generates content through the influence of trusted news outlets, journalists and bloggers.

Owned media – where content marketing really shines – consists of media that you create and you control, such as a videos, a blog or website.

Like earned media coverage, good content marketing offers potential customers non-interruptive content without pitching or selling them a product or service. By providing valuable information, companies using content marketing well earn their customers’ business and loyalty.

At Axia Public Relations, we can develop a content marketing strategy that will help your company reach its target markets through content marketing.