THE SIMPLE STRATEGY TO SUCCESS FOR YOUR BUSINESS DURING COVID AND BEYOND
I talked with a client during our weekly meeting, and we stumbled into a conversation about how we would determine a business’s success during COVID and beyond.
Without a doubt, COVID has changed the way we do business, But the tools we use to do business existed before COVID. The most important tool is “owned media.”
There are three different media types every business needs.
- Earned Media
- Paid Media
- Owned Media
“Earned media” are platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Linked In (my favorite), YouTube, Google, etc. Earned media platforms are anything that you have to put effort into communicating with your audience.
This media is excellent for building exposure, branding, trust, and authority. This kind of media should never be entirely relied on for creating a presence. Many small businesses have a social media profile and no website. This puts your business at significant risk because if that platform were to decide that your business page violates the platform’s code of conduct and then removes your page. All that hard work of building an audience is no thrown away.
“Paid media” is any advertisement you pay for on any of the platforms listed above. Paid media is a good investment only if you know who your audience is.
If you are still in your business’s discovery stage, the discovery stage is when you are analyzing who is interested in what you have and narrowing it down to the perfect buyer. Otherwise, you will be throwing money away if you try and target the general public and not a segmented group of people.
Lastly, “Owned media” is a necessity. Owned Media are any platforms that you own. This means websites, podcasts, emails, newsletters, blogs, online learning content, and even a membership site.
The reason why Owned media is essential to have today is that you own that media source. That is your domain to use. Whether you are promoting, selling, or expressing your views of the world or industry, your site’s content cannot be taken down.
Going back to the question, I was asked, “how I would determine a business’s success during COVID and beyond.” My answer is any business that UTILIZES their owned media by leveraging earned and paid media.
When you, as a business or influencer, post something on earned media or pays for advertisements, It needs to be linked back to you, something you own.
for example:
You post a video or do a live stream on FB (earned media), that video needs to be linked to your website or e-commerce (owned media) site so your audience can either find more information or purchase that product or service from you.
simplified version
Earned media > product or service > website or ecommerce > buy
It sounds like common sense, but so many small businesses make the mistake of not using the simple flow of driving people from the marketing phase, using earned and paid media to attract an audience, to the selling phase, urging the audience to buy build interest.
If you want your business to not only survive but to thrive, then utilizing your owned media and leveraging earned and paid media traffic toward your owned media is the best place to start.
