Marketing is the effort that a company puts forth to sell themselves, their product or their service. It’s the way a company or entrepreneur reaches their audiences. Without an audience, you can’t achieve success. Marketing is the means that connects you to your consumer.
The PESO model in marketing is important because it combines various marketing techniques and activities to create and build a strong presence. Marketing using the PESO model optimizes your content in every sphere, from sharing your content to engaging your customers. The PESO model consists of four arenas: paid media, earned media, shared media and owned media.
Paid Media
Paid media is exactly what it sounds like—you pay to market your company, or in other words, you pay to get your content in front of an audience. Paid media is essentially advertising. You pay to get advertisements that get your product or service the exposure it needs. This can come in the form of traditional marketing like ads in a newspaper or magazine, a billboard or physical mail. Digital advertising is more technologically advanced. In digital advertising, you pay to advertise yourself online through various avenues.
Some examples of paid media include social media ads, sponsored content, lead generation, outbound marketing effort and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.
Paid media is the most predictable, or certain, model of marketing. However, it is not the most cost-effective, as it requires you to pay higher costs for advertising. In paid media marketing, you pay up to get your message to the masses. Don’t write it off though because there’s always a necessary investment in any marketing endeavor.
Earned Media
Earned media is another way of saying public relations (PR). In this style of marketing, you must persuade outside forces, such as other companies, to spread your message. Typically, this is found in traditional media marketing. You try to convince a publisher or other party to headline your content. Basically, you’re using outside forces to push your content toward a particular audience.
Earned media can be anything from social media connections through bloggers and influencers to something very conventional, such as an interview on TV or the radio.
As opposed to paid media, which has a low trust factor, earned media makes you appear more credible and trustworthy since consumers see that someone they trust (e.g., an influencer) has decided to highlight your product or service. This is a low-cost marketing effort, but it’s also not the most predictable because you have no guarantee that third-party publications or companies will want what you have to offer. You earn your spot in this channel of marketing.
Shared Media
At its core, shared media is social media. In shared media, you go to the audience and share your product or service. Shared media is significant because this marketing sphere allows you to build relationships and connections with your audience as you share your content. It’s the most uncomplicated way to get your message out. Social media is always evolving, so you have to stay on top of the trends.
Social media platforms that exemplify shared media are company giants like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Everyone knows how to use these websites and apps, so it’s an easy way to get started. This is a low-cost, scalable marketing solution.
Owned Media
Owned media is short for content—more precisely, content you own. In owned media marketing, you run the ship. The content you are marketing is your property. This content typically showcases your skills and expertise in your specific industry. Owned media is shared in various different ways, but at the end of the day, it’s your content.
Some examples of owned media include generated content, articles, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, emails and videos.
This style of marketing is low-cost because the content you are generating comes from you in some way and is owned by you. This means that owned media has high predictability because you decide what type of content to create and you’re also in charge of what content you’ll share and how you’ll share it.
Owned media is significant because, unlike many other types of media, owned media is long-lasting. Once you’ve created and shared your content, its online presence remains. With temporary marketing efforts like an interview, once people hear it on the radio or see it on TV, it’s gone. Owned media sticks around, and you’re in control of it.
Optimization Through PESO
The overlap or combination of all four of these areas in marketing produces optimized content and opportunities to market your company. If you use these in conjunction with one another, you can amplify and multiply your marketing reach.
Some examples of this would be curating sponsorships and partnerships, co-branding, gaining affiliates or having brand ambassadors. Typically, this means you are extending yourself beyond your circle and inviting other sources into your marketing campaign. That’s how a message gets spread and reaches a wider audience in a shorter amount of time. To get optimal results in your marketing efforts, start incorporating the four aspects of the PESO model. I recommend beginning with owned media and shared media, as these are easy, low-cost ways to begin combining different types of media.
The combination of paid, earned, shared and owned media can boost your marketing efforts and take your product or service to the next level. Using the PESO method puts your company on a faster track to success. Nothing is easily earned in business, but using the PESO model can help you get there more quickly and efficiently.
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