Building a successful brand requires massive media exposure so that consumers can take note and build a recall factor. An average consumer attention span has reached a new low of 8 seconds in recent years, down from 12 seconds in the year 2000. As a result, businesses need to use all available media vehicles to gain exposure for a brand.
Broadly, there are three types of media vehicles at the disposal of any business. These can be classified as owned, earned, and paid. As the name suggests, owned media are platforms like websites, social media pages, etc while earned media is the social media mentions, media coverage, reviews, influencer shoutouts, and other appearances a business can generate. Most importantly, paid media is the media option where a business is expected to pay for placing an advertisement in front of the consumer. Options like search ads, display ads, and branded content are the commonly used vehicles to gain exposure through paid media.
Here is all you need to know about paid media and why it is important for any business:
What is Paid Media?
Paid media is the external marketing effort a business needs to make with mediums like pay-per-click advertising, display ads, and branded content. Paid media can play an important role in driving growth for a business and awareness for a brand.
Based on the end objective of the marketing strategy, a business can craft a paid media strategy to increase the media exposure a brand receives. As compared to other mediums like owned and earned media, the growth in exposure using paid media is phenomenal and is dependent on the budgetary commitment a business can make.
Benefits of Paid Media
As paid media can generate the required buzz and results for a business, it is increasingly preferred by businesses that are looking for growth. Here are the key benefits of paid media:
Better exposure
A business can generate better exposure by opting for paid media options. As we can reach more audiences, it has the potential to grow the reach of a business exponentially. Paid media helps a business reach consumers which were otherwise out of reach with organic methods.
Better engagement
Paid media provides an opportunity to target users in a specific segment like geography, gender, age group, etc. We can expect better engagement with the right paid media strategy in place.
Increased brand recall
Paid media provides a chance to get consumer attention across various platforms. With an increased brand recall, we have the opportunity to drive business growth and emerge as a strong brand in the market.
Increased traffic
Paid media has the potential to drive traffic and lead count for a business. Any organization that is looking to grow its traffic and sales need to include paid media in the media mix.
Importance of Paid Media for a Business
Paid media is important for a business for several important reasons. Here are key reasons why paid media holds a lot of importance for a business:
Reducing attention span
Customers are surrounded by a lot of brands. At the same time, the reduced attention span due to the emergence of several new platforms is not making life easier either for a marketer. As a result, paid media helps a business to get in front of the customer repeatedly.
Increased competition
Competition across product or service categories is increasing every day. As a result, it has become important for a business to use all possible options to gain customer attention. Building a paid media strategy helps a business get more customer attention and build a successful business.
Better control over the content
Building a narrative and maintaining it throughout the journey of an organization is important. Paid media strategy gives more control over the content that is going out in the market. We can maintain the narrative and build a positive perception of the brand with paid media.
Limited organic reach
Organic mediums have faced reduced reach in recent years. Be it Instagram posts or YouTube videos, brands are struggling to get attention using a purely organic strategy. As a result, it has become important to put in place a paid media strategy that can help to increase the overall reach of a business.
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