Earned vs. Paid Advertising
When it comes to online business, there are essentially two types of media at the core of a marketing plan: earned and paid advertising. In most cases, these two variations aim to accomplish the same goal of helping the marketer connect with their target audience.
Earned advertising takes more of an organic and natural approach to marketing. It is amassed by the articles you submit to the ezine directories, the posts you publish on your blog, and the expert advice you provide on the Q&A sites. Think of it as all the extra effort you put into creating awareness and engaging your audience. When your advertising is earned, that means you are generating word of mouth by virtue of your professional presence, product, or services.
Paid advertising is represented by all the online marketing efforts you pour the budget into. It is manifested in Google Adwords, the SEO consulting, your Pay-Per-Click, etc. With paid advertising, you are investing money to create awareness and engage your audience.
Both earned and paid advertising are often at the center of a successful
online marketing strategy and both come boasting unique advantages:
Earned
Cost Effective - In most cases, earned advertising doesn't require you to make any financial investments. Here it's all about devoting the time, energy, and effort into communicating with your audience and delivering solid content on a consistent basis.
Qualified Traffic - Whether through your efforts in SEO or
social media, earned advertising can ensure that you generate highly qualified traffic. This is traffic that consists of visitors who come in pre-engaged with a high level of interest in your offering.
Diversity - Earned advertising can be leveraged in a wide variety of ways. It allows you to execute your marketing strategy through blogging, social networks, online video, and other media that could benefit those efforts.
Paid
Greater Reach - Paid advertising offers the ability to instantly extend your reach to a larger audience. A single advertising campaign could enable you to generate a steady flow of repeat visitors and potential customers.
Effective - In the soundly executed marketing strategy, paid advertising can be highly effective. A mobile marketing campaign that gets you a high number of subscriber conversions for your mailing list is a perfect example of how it can produce excellent results.
Deeper Insight - One of the biggest advantages of paid advertising comes from being able to measure your marketing efforts. Whether it's a simple
email campaign or a more elaborate digital marketing program, you have access to powerful tools that provide calculable insight into your performance.
