Earned, Owned, Paid: Which Media Strategy is Right for You?

For your brand, for your business, if you're looking to get more reach for your branded business, then you have to be thinking, in my opinion, like a mini media company, right? And I have a great guest today. Lisa Simone Richards is here today to talk about 3 different types of media that you, you should really be considering adding in to your overall strategy. So Lisa, so great to have you here to talk about this. And it's funny because when I was looking at, you know, and looking at your biography and I'm getting ready for this interview. I'm like, you and I are, are like, we're, we're together on so many different things with the exposure, reach, people who are spinning their wheels on social media, you know, all of these different people paying, buying Facebook ads and not seeing those results. You and I are both big proponents, I think, of this idea of media, and then we really have to gravitate toward using more of it. But we need to lay the foundation first. Earned, owned, and paid media. I know what they are, but I want to give you an opportunity to explain what those 3 types of media are.

100%. And thank you so much for having me today, Cheryl. And it's definitely key to understand the types of media before we go any deeper into this conversation. So as business owners, we all rely on visibility to be able to reach more clients. So there are a few different ways that you can go about that. Some more familiar than others. So when we say earned media, we'll do earned media last. Let's go with, let's go with owned media and paid media first. So owned media, which I often refer to typically as social media, that's gonna be the platforms that you own, your website, that could be your Instagram. Well, you don't own the platform per se, but social media accounts like Instagram, Facebook, et cetera. And what's powerful about social media is We can control the content. We can decide what we wanna say, how we wanna say it, when we're going to say it. Whereas 20 years ago, if we wanted to be seen, we were pretty much at the mercy of a television producer giving us access to that platform. So incredibly powerful that we can do that now. And beyond being on social media, it's incredible that we can go one step further and have conversations with leads and prospective buyers behind the scenes. Send them a voice note, a video, or a DM.. But some of the challenges with social media, like you were saying, the number one thing people come to me saying is that they feel like they're spinning their wheels on social media and they're losing so much time. And sure, they get some likes and comments, but it's not actually turning into something meaningful. It's not turning into—

and I just want to jump in because this is so, so key. If you don't have a strategy for the social media, right, the, the earned— sorry, the the owned media. That's when the spinning of the wheels happens. Because if you— and so you have to have some fundamental things down before you really start to just randomly go out there on social media. That's when it really doesn't work. So it's not that we're saying social media doesn't work. It's just it does if you have the right strategy. I just wanted to put that out there.

Absolutely. Thank you for highlighting that. And that's definitely something I want to do as I talk through each of these types of media. They have their place, but let's be aware of the ups and the downs and how we can make sure we're using it to our best advantage. So that was social media that we talked about. But again, some of the challenges are it feels like you're lost in the noise. Everybody is out there. Maybe 6 years ago you could have done a post and write hashtag online business coach and gotten me or gotten clients from it. But we all know that's not going to happen today.

It's not going to work so much now.

That's not going to happen today.

Well, because there's so much competition. Right. There's so much competition, which really leads us to this idea that you have to have a mix of different media, which is the premise of what we're talking about today.

And just one thing I want to share further to social media before we move into paid media is we also have to remember, and I hear this from the marketing director of a coach that I work with constantly on social media, we're not just competing with other people in our space. We're competing with celebrities and breakups and cute little puppies and kittens. So there's a lot that we're competing with in the noise of social media.

True, true. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good point. And, uh, it is a— now it's competitive, but again, I think that is still worth doing, but do it in a strategic and smart way.

That's the keyword, strategy. So let's talk a little bit about paid media, another type of media that a lot of us are familiar with. This is where we're actually paying to get access. So that can look like paying for Facebook ads, Google ads. It could be something more traditional like billboards, magazine, television ads, etc. And again, when I think about the evolution of the ad industry in the last 20 years, How powerful now that we can go on Facebook and say, I'm looking for females between 35 and 45 who live in this area with these interests, and we can be so laser specific on who we want to target. Whereas again, look back a few years ago and it was, let's put up this billboard and hope it works. Um, we're going to put it in a certain type of magazine and fingers crossed the right person sees it. So it's so powerful today that we can actually really control who content is getting in front of. But again, a few cautionary things about paid media that I like to highlight number one, nobody went on Facebook and Instagram today to look for ads. We did it to look for content from our friends and whatnot. And the same way that I can scroll through Instagram and see an ad and scroll past it, I have to remember my clients can do the same thing. So it's a lot more challenging to capture attention. Also with paid media, I used to try and do Facebook ads myself and well, we can all laugh and know that that was hundreds of dollars down the drain that went nowhere. When paid media did start to work for me, this is when I hired an agency. So keep in mind, I was paying a multi-thousand dollar monthly retainer fee with them. And of course that didn't include the ad spend. So now we have to do that on top of it. And again, one of the distinctions I'd like to make with paid media is this is attracting typically cold traffic, people who don't know you, they have no intimacy with you. You have to just hope you had something scroll, scroll scroll stopping, sorry, that got their attention and brought them back into your world. So it's powerful that we can do this kind of targeting, but ads is a very, very expensive game to play. And since November with the iOS update, everybody is seeing that shift in their ad strategy.

And I want to just add this. I think that paid media can be very beneficial once you have a high converting or a predictably converting funnel or process or sales process that you're putting people through. I have had many, many conversations with people who have said, oh, but I'm, but I'm running my ads, I'm spending $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 a month and I'm not getting any return. And then you dig further and you find out that they don't already have something converting. They don't know their numbers, they don't know their offer, it's not dialed in, they can't tell you what the conversion rate is. So, you know, I think a lot of times with paid media, people are putting the cart before the horse. So it's, it can be great, but again, it has to be used, I think, with caution. And there's certain steps you need to take before it can really work to your advantage.

And I couldn't agree with you more. Getting— being clear that it's working organically before you throw money at it is so important because just because you did throw money at it didn't mean it's going to work. Facebook would like to take the cash, but it's not proven it's going to work.

Exactly.

So this is where we can kind of now start to talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. We've talked about social media slash owned media. We've talked about paid media, but the third type of media that a lot of people aren't aware of is earned media. And this is when you're simply leveraging other people's platforms. Now, I'm a huge believer that there is somebody out there who's got a group of your ideal clients all hanging out together, whether it's listening to a podcast, going to a specific conference, watching a morning television show, reading a particular website. There's someone that your clients are already going for information that's in your industry. So why not figure out, hey, what's that place they're all hanging out at? Who is the person that I need to know and how do I make a compelling ask so I can get access to that platform and be interviewed as a guest, speak on that stage? Um, so this is the world of publicity and PR, leveraging other people's platforms to get earned media. And the reason it's called earned media is because not just anybody can do it like paid media and social media. You have to be vetted and someone has to choose you and select you to get access to these opportunities. And in turn, this kind of visibility is the thing that's going to highlight you from your quote unquote competition. I don't love that word, but other people in your space. Now, when you're the person on stage, people look at you differently than somebody else who's in the audience. You're actually getting now a third-party endorsement. You're building expert status. You're being perceived as an authority. So not only are you getting visibility, but you're amplifying people's perception of you. This gives you the ability to, number one, you can become a premium brand. Think about no-name ketchup in the grocery store versus Heinz. You'll pay more for Heinz. And because you're reaching more people now, you can actually you have volume and you can scale as well. So I love, love, love the concept of earned media because here's a little thing that a lot of people don't know. More often than not, like literally 99% of the time, this is not something you're paying for. When my clients go on television and they do maybe a fitness segment, they're not paying $100,000 like Tropicana orange juice is to have their product featured. They're getting access and exposure for free, just highlighting their skill. When you're speaking on a stage, sometimes you may pay for your own attendance to the event. Sometimes they will cover all of that for you. So it's really great is you can get access to visibility that's even more powerful than paid media and social media, and it doesn't cost you anything, and you get a ton of benefits on the other, other side. Cheryl, I want to give you a second to ask a question, but I want to say one more thing before I forget it. So not only are you getting this endorsement, this credibility, but you're also getting SEO benefits from it. And also something different from paid and earned— paid and social media is that this also has longevity. So when you do an ad on Facebook, the second you turn off your ad spend, Facebook isn't going to be nice and keep running it for a few extra days.

It's gone.

There's no trace of it. Put something on social media, we see how quickly things fly through there and all the latest things come up. So why not go onto a podcast and talk about a topic for 30 minutes? And anytime someone's interested in that topic and they do a search, oh look, your name is going to come up as a guest expert on somebody else's show. And that content is going to live on indefinitely.

I do a lot of speaking on podcasts. I do a lot of speaking in general, but podcasts, I would say, especially in the last few years, has been the predominant way. And the beautiful thing that I think— why I think business owners ought to really think more closely about this idea of earned media is especially podcasts, because you can do it from the comfort of your home or office. Like, you don't have to get on a plane, you're not going to a studio necessarily. And so, I do a lot of podcast talking. One of my clients is actually in the process right now of looking to build an audience. And I have said, let's focus on earned media. Like, let's focus on that because you're leveraging other people's audiences that are already brought together. Now, if you can get yourself in that opportunity to speak in front of those people, you're going to be able to grow faster than if you were focusing on owned media only. So that's where I think a lot of people miss opportunities because they don't have a full-fledged strategy that involves all three of these types of media. So which leads us to the discussion around what is the right combination. Is it all three? I mean, I know I have my own opinions and I'm happy to share them, but I'll let you start. What is the right mix of these different types of media that we have already outlined?

Well, I actually even have something specific that I love to teach my clients inside of the concept of earned media that I call having a healthy media mix. And let me share what that, what I mean by that. I'm going to tell you a little story first about this. So my husband and I love to play in the kitchen together. We love to cook. And a recipe that we make every few weeks is a Thai red curry. Now we don't do it so frequently that I remember how to do it off the top of my head. So when we're making it in the kitchen, I turn on YouTube, I play the video, I pause it, I do the thing. Play the video, pause it, do the thing. Now maybe about like 5 minutes in, Steve's gonna say, Lisa, we have watched this video so many times. I can't stand the sound of her voice. Is there a blog post with the details on how to do this? So the point of highlighting that story is that we wanna get to the same place, but we have different ways of wanting to get there. So what I always recommend to my clients is having a healthy media mix. And what I mean by that is you want a way that your ideal clients can read about you, hear you, and see you. So no matter how they prefer to consume content, you're showing up in at least one of those three ways. And then if they like you and they're going to binge view, they can find you on two other additional platforms as well. So the way that I like to frame it is thinking about the ladder of publicity. So at the bottom, you can start by thinking about written content, doing a guest blog post on somebody else's site, not just your own, with the same traffic, writing on another person's website, Really simple tip. Go on Google, type in write for us and your area of expertise. Write for us fashion, write for us beauty, write for us online business. And you're going to have sites that are like, hey, we're looking for contributors just like you to share content. Amazing. Now you're taking the work you would have done on your own blog anyways and putting it in front of new faces who can come back into your world.

I think a lot of people think that they have to pay for that opportunity, which sometimes you might.

Sometimes true.

But a lot of the time you are contributing and you're putting your own sweat equity into it. And that's how you're getting paid because of the visibility that you're gaining by being part of that publication.

Absolutely. Anytime my clients ask me, hey Lisa, will I get paid to write this? I'm like, that's not the point. The purpose is the exposure. That's the payment. And if you get paid, that's a cherry on top. I have clients who go on national television and get a few hundred bucks per segment. Another client who wrote for Reader's Digest and she got paid as well. It's a cherry on top, the exposure, the logo. That's really what's going to be the payoff. Yeah.

Yeah.

So we were talking about written content first, and I like to get started there because I have only child syndrome. Throw me on stage in front of 3,000 people and I'll be like, hey everyone, drop your phones, pay attention to me. I get that that's probably terrifying for a lot of people. So why not start behind the comfort of your keyboard? I'll let you let that perfectionist win this time. You know, you can re-edit the article 48 hours later. You can give it to somebody else for feedback before hitting submit and feeling really good about what you're putting out there. And then once you see your name on a website, one of my clients, Cassie, she got featured in Self, on self.com, one of her favorite web magazines growing up. The way she saw herself after her name was in there was huge for her. And she was getting kudos from friends and family on Facebook. So now that our confidence is growing, we can confidently keep climbing this ladder. So once we've done written content, then I suggest moving into audio content. This could be being interviewed on a podcast. It could be co-hosting or moderating a room on Clubhouse. It could be being interviewed on local radio if you run a bricks-and-mortar business specifically. Everyone watching this has had a conversation before, and I know you can do it again. So that's a great way to start getting in front of people who prefer to listen to content. We were talking about podcasts just now. Typically, a person who listens to one podcast is listening to 8 on average. So what would it be like if you were on 5 shows that are in your industry and someone heard your name over and over again and your message and your process, by the time they come to your site, by the time they book that call, they're a warm lead. They're not just a tire kicker looking for free information. They're someone who believe in what you're putting out there, and that's why they want to come and explore how they can go deeper with you.

And then of course, my areas of expertise and the thing I'm so passionate about is video., right? But a lot of people are hesitant. I understand that because they're like, I don't like the way I look, I don't like the way, you know, I have to do this first, I've got to lose the weight or get my nose fixed and my hair, whatever those things are. The truth is that if you have a message worth sharing, you're— it's— I think it's selfish if you're holding that back from the people who could benefit from your message because of your vanity. So get yourself out there, right? I'm a big proponent. And for me Lisa, one of the things that I'm really passionate about is the idea of video podcasting because you're hitting kind of two, you know, you're feeding two birds with one seed in that sense, right? You're doing the video and repurposing to the audio, which I think is super powerful. But yeah, I totally agree. You know, people learn in different ways. They like to consume content in different modalities. And having that right mix of the types of earned media that you might put out there obviously is, is going to be one of the key things. I personally think that yes, ads are definitely worth looking at if you have a dialed-in offer, but I'm actually more, um, more about the earned and the owned personally. For especially people who are like at that 6-figure mark and they're looking to kind of get into multiple 6 figures and hit that million-dollar mark, I think that's the place to really focus a lot of your attention on and really dial that in while also perfecting, you know, your, your funnel, your sales process, and then adding the, the ads in after the fact. What, what say you about that?

Yeah, I mean, my question is, why grow slowly, one follower, one person at a time, when you can grow by leaps and bounds by leveraging other people's platforms? And, you know, you can go on a television show, and for my clients, most of the time, if they do a 5-minute segment within, or If they do a 4-minute segment on television, typically within 5 minutes they have 100 new followers. Like, that wouldn't happen just on any day of the week. And as you know, the segment then goes online, more people come into their world, and now they can utilize their social media to have one-on-one conversations with those new followers that came in that day.

And you should promote yourself to your own existing audience of where you're appearing. So like, if you, you know, if you're— I know you're going to want to do that, but don't just do it once, you know, promote the fact that— let's say you use the example of the Self, um, online magazine, right? Like, that client who got on that publication could promote it to her following now, but who's to say that she couldn't tell them about it again in 6 months from now or a year from now? Remember when I was on? So long as the message is still relevant, which it probably is. So you can get a lot of leverage from it, I think.

Absolutely. And of course you can always have that logo on your website, on your social media profiles. It's really fast forwarding that know, like, and trust credibility process because instantly when somebody sees those logos, they're like, oh, this person isn't just any other entrepreneur, any other coach. They're like the chosen ones. Like we know how we think about people we see in the media. Like it's not that hard for us to be able to control our own perception and reach more people. So there's just so much win-win-win that I'm like, why wouldn't you want to fast forward your growth? Build your reputation, and keep a few dollars in your pocket while you're at it.

I think there's a lot of mystique around the idea of how do I get on television, and as TV personalities and being on the other side and the receiving end of that, it's, it's not as complex as you might think. And I think there, there is this sort of like idea that, gee, that just seems so unattainable, but the fact is it's very attainable. So long as you have the right strategy to approach and how you pitch, which is really what you have helped people to do, right? The Perfect Podcast Pitch. I'd love for you to tell people about your, your free download.

Absolutely. So there's nothing worse than sitting at a blank screen and a cursor and not knowing what to type. So what I thought I would share with everyone is, do you want to see what the pitch that I send that helps me book 10+ podcasts every single month? Go ahead and download my pitch template at www.theperfectpodcastpitch.com. You'll see what my pitch template looks like. And beyond that, I'm also going to give you a framework with a fill in the blank so you can create your own podcast pitch as well. So no more blinking cursor for anyone who used Microsoft Word back in the day with that little paperclip that would torment you. Now you have a framework to go off of, and it's one that's successful and it's helping me book 10+ shows every single month.

I love it. I love it. Before you go, I would love to, um, ask you about a tip, a tool, or something that's really helping you to market yourself right now as part of our Stop marketing like it's 1999. What's something that's really working for you? Be it related to this topic or unrelated to this topic.

Let's stay related to this topic. When it comes to PR and visibility, the thing people say to me is, so Lisa, how do I write a press release? Yeah. Haven't done that since 1999. It's all about writing a pitch, just like what you're going to see in the podcast pitch template. It's just about how do I write an email where I offer value to somebody, where I offer value to their audience. And because I can bring that audience, they say yes to me and give me access to to the platform. So no more press releases like, hey, I did this thing, wanna highlight me? It's all about the pitch. It's like, hey, your audience is looking for this thing and here's how I can give it to them.

I love it. Well, this has been great. You know, I think we have a lot in common. I think we believe in a lot of the same things, and obviously we're part of the same, some of the same groups, networking groups and whatnot. So, so glad to have you on Cash It On Camera today. And as a final note, and as a final word, as we bring this to a close. Earned, owned, and paid. Should people have all three or in what order should they focus on those?

Ooh, that's a good one. Okay. You know what? I think you should certainly have social media because guess what? If you're going for earned media, people are going to do their research and they want to know who you are. So that's a way you can control the message. You could do a reel saying, hey, this is what I am and this is who I am and this is what I do so that there's a grounding for people to come to. Focus on getting earned media. Don't, don't go spending your money on testing things with ads and whatnot and hiring the agency. Like you can fast forward so much more and get really similar access opportunities simply by showing up with value. And again, remember your client knows the difference between someone saying, hey, look at me, I'm awesome versus someone say, hey, look at that person, they're awesome. And which endorsement would you rather get?

Yeah, I totally agree. Earned, owned, and paid media. The mix needs to be there, you know, but do it in the right order and have the right strategy behind each and every one of them. Thank you so much, Lisa. I really appreciate you being on Cashing on Camera today.

So happy to be here, and I hope everyone takes something from this conversation and puts into practice today.

Thanks, Cheryl. You're welcome.