In recent years, as the digitalization of marketing in corporate activities has progressed, there has been a growing trend to use owned media for marketing, promotion, and public relations activities.
Rather than
mass marketing
, which involves widespread marketing and promotion, we enrich the content of owned media with our own original blogs and articles, build long-term relationships of trust with users, and use marketing and promotions that lead to customer development. This can contribute to more effective and stable business operations.
Therefore, this time we will introduce marketing and promotion activities using owned media. We hope that anyone involved in content marketing or owned media management will find this helpful.
What is owned media?
Owned Media
, in a broad sense, refers to media owned by a company. For example, your homepage, blog, Twitter account, etc. In a narrow sense, web magazines and blogs operated by companies are called owned media.
In Japan, it started to become popular around 2010, and is generally used in a narrow sense. The formats used by companies include homepages (including blogs and EC sites), e-mail magazines, and pamphlets.
What is the purpose of owned media?
One of the drawbacks of using social media is that users are only exposed to new information. Also, the only way to contact people who are looking for something to solve their worries and problems is to rely on search engines. Therefore, owned media is thought to have functions that complement this.
Get people aware of your products and services and aim for first contact.
Even if you provide enough information about your products and services, potential customers will not come to your site voluntarily. Therefore, we pay advertising costs and publish on paid media to gain exposure, but if you operate owned media as another gateway, you will be able to reach out to a wider range of potential customers. .
Get people to like your company, products, and services
By distributing content that conveys “thoughts” that cannot be expressed on the product or service page alone, you can convert the potential customers you contacted in step 1 into prospective customers, and eventually into customers, developing them into good customers (repeat customers). It is possible to go.
Four reasons why owned media is attracting attention
Decline in advertising effectiveness due to information overload
Major changes in the user environment, specifically the explosive spread of smartphones and the accompanying rise of social media, have led to user-driven information distribution becoming commonplace and the amount of information itself increasing.
As a result, the environment has become difficult for traditional (one-way) advertising messages to get across. Therefore, the potential of owned media, which allows companies to control information themselves and build relationships with customers, is attracting attention.
Changes in Google’s algorithm
As countermeasures against low-quality content solely for SEO purposes and paid link purchases have gone into full swing, some keywords have experienced significant ranking changes.
In addition to the decline in advertising effectiveness, Google’s policy of emphasizing the quality of content has become clearer than before, and the method of content marketing has become widespread, and owned media is attracting attention as one of the methods. It has become.
Content fluidization
Information dissemination through social media has become established as a powerful distribution channel, but because it is flow-based, content cannot be accumulated as an asset. Looking back at the social media marketing that became popular a few years ago, there are many cases where it ended up being a temporary “buzz”.
Therefore, it is expected that stock-type owned media will be seen as a hub for disseminating content, and that it will have the role of ensuring continuous user contact and serving as a content
archive
function.
Changes in the media environment
Nowadays, the devices used to obtain information are shifting from PCs to smartphones, and the most common use of these devices is for “killing time” in small amounts of free time, such as while on the move or while waiting.
It is said that more than 40% of usage time is spent on content, so information in content format is a means of delivering information in a more natural flow to passive customers (potential customers). provision is considered effective.
What can you do with owned media?
A shift away from dependence on advertising as content becomes an asset
The basics of owned media are “providing content from the user’s perspective.”
By accumulating (stocking) high-quality content on owned media, the content itself becomes an asset, which may lead to a reduction in advertising costs.
In particular, if you achieve high ranking in search results, it is possible to create a situation where potential customers will continue to visit your owned media.
Information dissemination using social media
If the content is tailored to the user’s perspective, it is possible to spread the content to more users by disseminating the information to flow-type social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
Since user characteristics differ depending on social media, it is important to strategically plan and design the content you provide, considering which social media you hope will be disseminated.
Medium- to long-term customer development through service awareness and brand lift
It is also possible to provide other value through content that goes beyond functionality and price appeal to address user issues and concerns. Building relationships of trust by providing content from the user’s perspective can be said to be a unique benefit of owned media.
What I don’t like about owned media
lacks immediate effect
Owned media does not produce immediate results.
In particular, the effect of ranking high in search results is difficult to see until a certain number of high-quality content is accumulated as assets and natural backlinks can be acquired.
I sometimes see cases where short-term measures such as listing advertisements are compared with the cost performance of owned media soon after the launch, but this is a typical example of not understanding the characteristics of owned media.
Therefore, this can be said to be a measure that requires a long-term perspective.
Difficult to operate
Operating owned media is extremely difficult.
Not only when writing is done in-house, but even when writing is outsourced, a variety of tasks are required, such as content planning, editing, proofreading, submission, schedule management, and effectiveness verification.
I hear people say, “If you use crowdsourcing, you can get articles written cheaply, right?”, but you need to understand that this is just part of the process of operating owned media.
Important points for owned media operation
Understand that unlike advertising, results are not immediate.
Owned media is not a quick-hit medium.
Just because you publish content on your own website doesn’t mean that the number of views will increase immediately. Even if an article becomes a hit through SNS, it does not mean that users will continue to view that media.
Owned media is effective in attracting customers over the medium to long term, rather than attracting customers in the short term by running commercials and getting them to buy products. It is also necessary to conduct thorough verification and research to find out what kind of content resonates with users.
Also, SEO measures are essential to increase access to your website. No matter how high-quality your content is, if you don’t take SEO measures, it won’t appear at the top of search results and you won’t be able to reach users in the first place.
It is necessary to make efforts to seek understanding within the company.
It is not enough for the department or person in charge of web marketing to understand these characteristics of owned media. There needs to be a common understanding throughout the company that it takes time to achieve results with owned media.
It is essential for those in charge of running owned media to be prepared to answer any questions that may arise from within the company.
Creating content that benefits users
While it is important for content creators to have a mindset and understand those around them, the most important thing to keep in mind is whether the content sent through owned media is useful to users.
By providing useful content to users, you will increase the number of visits. When customers search on the Internet, they are likely searching for information. Continuously disseminating content that properly meets those needs will increase the number of accesses and improve search engine ratings.
To this end, it is important to create content from the user’s perspective, rather than unilaterally promoting your company’s products and services.
Learn how to utilize owned media through examples from notable companies
Next, we will look at examples of companies that are successfully utilizing owned media.
How large companies utilize owned media “YEs! MAGAZINE” (Sapporo Breweries)
Sapporo Beer’s own media, “Yes magazine,” has the theme of “a web magazine where you can find answers about beer,” and through content such as beer-related trivia, recipes that go well with beer, and ways to enjoy beer, we promote the appeal of Yebisu Beer. It is run for the purpose of communicating.
Almost 3,000 likes on Facebook! In one article that received a “high-quality recipe that doesn’t require much effort,” rather than using direct advertising as the product already has high recognition, the company tried to indirectly encourage people’s recall of the product. This was communicated through strategy.
How to use owned media for startups “Yemamile” (ietty)
ietty, which provides real estate rental related services, provides owned media called “Yemamile”. The real estate field is a competitive area for programmatic advertising. With the price per keyword for advertising skyrocketing, it is extremely difficult for late start-ups to compete with large companies with large budgets. Therefore, Yeti uses owned media to achieve everything from content-based SEO and attracting customers via social media to membership registration.
For example, an article about a ramen shop received 4,000 likes on Facebook. It was widely spread, with the number breaking through. At first glance, the article seems to have nothing to do with rental services, but by disseminating the article, we aim to acquire natural backlinks for “station name”, which is essential when searching for rental properties. I’m letting you do it.
How to utilize owned media for BtoB service companies “Sumiflabo” (Sumitomo Real Estate Development)
The advantage of owned media is that it can be effectively used not only for general consumer services but also for BtoB services. Sumiflabo is operated for the purpose of building customer contact points for Sumitomo Real Estate’s rental office services.
In addition to location and tenant information, we also provide office-related content such as information useful for our target business people, such as ease of work, organizational theory, and recruitment theory. We create and disseminate content such as interviews with notable venture managers who live in our own tenants.
How to use owned media to successfully attract customers with SEO “Nordic lifestyle tool store” (Classicom Journal)
Although “Nordic Living Tools Store” is an e-commerce site, it has achieved great success by combining it with owned media. At “Nordic Living Tools Store,” the product page is structured in a magazine-like style to guide users who visit the website to purchase the product.
As a result, it has grown into a super e-commerce site that boasts a maximum of 13 million page views per month in the past, and currently boasts an average of 1.3 million page views per month.
An example of using owned media overseas: “NATIVE INSTRUMENT” (Native Instruments)
NATIVE INSTRUMENTS, a Berlin-based music software manufacturer, actively promotes its products in its own owned media. In interviews with artists who use our products, we introduce videos of actual composing scenes, and we also use owned media to show how to use our products.
In the past, the only way to learn how to use software or musical instruments was to read the instructions or ask someone to teach you how to use them, but by actively using videos, we have overcome this challenge. Additionally, by keeping the site as simple as possible without including any advertisements from other companies, it is easy to draw attention to links to articles introducing other company products and interviews with artists.
Domestic notable owned media
In addition to this, I would like to introduce some other noteworthy owned media.
Owned media operated by our company
We have picked up examples of companies that operate their own media in-house, with employees primarily in charge of writing. Because we can provide original information unique to each company, we have a wide range of high-quality content.
LIG BLOG (LIG)
This is LIG’s in-house media that boasts millions of page views.
Although it is an owned media, it is unique in that it generates advertising revenue.
Cybozu style (Cybozu)
Cybozu’s owned media is always cited as a successful example of owned media.
It is unique in that it does not advertise its own services and instead seeks to be an interesting medium.
Denho (Dentsu)
This is an owned media where Dentsu employees write columns using their real names.
It contains a lot of professional and high quality information.
Jointly operated owned media
Even if you want to start your own media business, there are many cases where your company lacks the resources and know-how to manage media.
Here, we will introduce examples of owned media management in collaboration with companies that are skilled in these areas.
Beauty & Co. (Shiseido)
This is an owned media about beauty operated by Shiseido.
Supported by Infoburn, which specializes in building owned media.
FASHION HEADLINE
Fashion News Media is operated by Fashion Headline, a joint venture between Isetan Mitsukoshi and Eid.
Lidea (lion)
Media related to daily life run by Lion (edited by Onepaku).
It is characterized by the ability to ask questions to experts called Living Meisters.
summary
In this way, owned media is attracting attention both domestically and internationally.
Although it takes time and effort to operate, it is gaining recognition for its ability to attract customers as fans.
Also, since the hurdles to tackle are high, doing so over the medium to long term can make it difficult for competitors to imitate this strategy.
Understanding and working with owned media will lead to diversification of channels, making it possible to implement promotional and marketing measures that are one step ahead of the competition.