[00:00:00] Are you tired of empty promises and stolen ideas? Me too. Got Marketing is a podcast for marketers and small brands who want real talk and clever strategies without the BS. Running an online business is hard, but everything gets easier when your marketing starts performing. I'm Mia Fileman, your straight shooting, campaign loving friend, here to talk marketing, running a business, pop culture, and everything in between.
Let's dive in.
[00:00:40] Hello, friend. When I tell people I work in marketing, the first thing they say is, Oh, like social media? Yes, like social media, but not Only social media. I teach and preach a multi channel approach because all media channels are my children and I love them equally. Okay. That's a lie. Email marketing is my favorite child by far.
[00:01:02] The key to small business success is creativity first. And then multi channel marketing. Why? Because when we use a smart mix of paid, earned, owned, and borrowed channels, there is a multiplier effect. The whole is truly greater than the sum of the parts. Plus, different channels perform better at different stages of the customer journey.
[00:01:29] So relying on just one channel is like trying to win a relay race with a one person team. In this episode, we're breaking down marketing channels. Paid, earned, owned and borrowed. Why they work better together and how to balance them without burning out or blowing your budget. If you want broader reach, more leads and faster conversions, then this one is for you.
[00:01:55] Let's dive in. Let's start with owned channels. The purchase decision in 2025 and beyond is going to be made on an owned channel. Owned channels include your website, the landing pages, the blog, your email list, podcast subscribers, any apps that you own, any communities that you manage. The reason why owned channels are where the purchase decision is made is because they are a distraction free environment.
[00:02:26] When you're on social media, you are competing for attention with millions of other accounts. When someone is on your email list or on your website, you've got them. This is why email marketing has one of the best returns on investment compared to any other marketing channels. For every dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect an ROI of 42.
[00:02:51] For every dollar you spend on organic social media, you can expect 2. 42. It is a huge difference. So owned channels play such an important role in your marketing mix. What's the point in having fantastic social media content just to get people to your website and then letting them down when they're there.
[00:03:14] So I take a non conventional approach. I think brands should start with owned channels and then work up the funnel. Don't start with social media. Make sure that you've got great landing pages, a website that you're proud to send people to, and that you set up your email marketing from day dot. So that when you finally get someone off social media and onto your own channel, you are going to convert them.
[00:03:42] Earned media is our next bucket. Earned media encompasses things like PR, user generated content, testimonials, media mentions, shout outs, podcast episodes. Basically, you are exchanging exposure and visibility for your Knowledge and your insights. So if you are a podcast guest on got marketing, this is an example of earned media.
[00:04:11] You are going to get awareness from being on the show in exchange for sharing your wisdom with the got marketing audience. Earned media is sensational for building credibility and authority. The other reason why I love earned media, and it is how I have built my brand, is that it is free. It just takes sweat equity.
[00:04:32] I have exchanged my knowledge and my time for exposure, not my cold hard cash. Paid channels. When we think about paid media, we instantly think of Meta. Instagram and Facebook, but there are so many other options these days. Spotify, Pinterest, Tik TOK, LinkedIn. There's also pay per click Google advertising sponsorships.
[00:04:56] Here's what I want to say to you as a small business owner with a very tiny budget, you do not need to spend a lot. When you use a smart mix of paid earned owned and borrowed channels, you don't need to invest a lot. I invested about 1, 500 for the entire year last year on paid advertising. The most important thing when it comes to paid ads is please make sure that you have organic traction before you spend a single dollar.
[00:05:30] When I speak to really successful business owners, when I ask them the biggest mistakes that they made when they started their business, it was that they over invested in paid advertising before they had figured their shit out. Figured out their messaging, figured out their audience, figured out their creative.
[00:05:48] Instead, they poured good money after bad on ads thinking that ads was going to do all the heavy lifting. Ads are a force multiplier. They can only improve what you've got going, right? And if what you've got going isn't very good, then you are just pouring money down the drain. Please also bear in mind that when it comes to paid ads, The creative is 80 percent of the equation.
[00:06:15] So just running Facebook ads is not a marketing strategy. This is a channel. All right, let's talk about borrowed channels. What we're talking about here is organic social media. Those are borrowed channels. Do we build castles on borrowed land? No, we don't. Right? These castles we don't own. The best way to use borrowed channels is to drive traffic to an owned channel.
[00:06:42] If you look at my social media content, you will see that I've come up with many different ways to get you onto my email list and onto my website or onto this podcast. Because then I will own my audience. Does your marketing feel like guesswork? Be honest. Join Marketing Circle. The membership for female entrepreneurs who want to nail their strategy, boost their creativity, and create marketing that actually pays off.
[00:07:14] No cookie cutter templates and broken dreams. Just practical marketing training, mentoring and support. You'll work directly with me, a legit marketing expert, and tap into a brains trust of clever business owners who bring their expertise, ideas, and support to the table. We're capped at 45 members, so apply to join today.
[00:07:40] Earlier on in the intro, I talked about how different channels work better at particular stages of the customer journey. And that is why we want a smart mix of paid, earned, owned, and borrowed. And I want to talk about this in detail so that you really understand this. Social media, whether it's paid or organic, works best at the top of the funnel.
[00:08:04] It is great for people finding out about you for the first time. If we're looking at the organic side, this is going to take a really long time because organic reach on meta platforms is practically dead. It sits at about 2 percent of organic reach. You're going to have much more organic reach on platforms like TikTok and LinkedIn.
[00:08:25] But it's still going to take time for you to build an audience on organic social media channels. We are no longer in the 2012 2014 era of Instagram, okay? Those days are never coming back. If you want to build your audience fast, then paid ads is a great way to do it. Now let's look at the middle of funnel.
[00:08:48] Social media is not great at all for the middle of funnel. Earned media is fantastic for that stage of the customer journey because this is the consideration phase. This is where people are thinking, is she full of s t or does she actually know her s t? This is where people are looking for signals of credibility, authority and trust and they are considering alternatives.
[00:09:14] So using earned media where somebody talks about you rather than you talking about yourself. This Is a great way to leverage earned media and then the bottom of funnel. That's where owned media comes into its own. Like I mentioned earlier, people are going to make the purchase on an owned channel. This is your bottom of funnel.
[00:09:40] So social media, terrible for bottom of funnel, awful, expensive, really hard to convert someone directly from Instagram. So much easier to convert someone from email marketing. It's actually where I make all of my money. So the takeaway is use the right channels for the right stage of the customer journey or the marketing funnel.
[00:10:03] All right. How do we balance this? Cause it sounds like a lot, right? Paid, earned, owned, borrowed. Like when am I going to have time for this? Please just start by choosing one from each bucket. Currently, many of you have got three active social media accounts that you update regularly. You're on Facebook, you're on Instagram, and you're on LinkedIn.
[00:10:24] Pick one and then make sure that you've got one earned media channel and that you are optimizing. And refining an owned channel so that it is set up to convert. This is particularly important when you are running campaigns that you use a smart mix of paid, earned, owned, and borrowed channels. But it's also important for your always on marketing too.
[00:10:47] Source of truth. You will have seen that third party cookies are being removed from platforms like Google and Facebook. We're also moving towards a more private future where companies don't sell our data to the same degree that we are experiencing now. As a marketer, I'm actually really here for this because I'm old enough to remember a time where ideas and not data was the basis of marketing.
[00:11:23] And I'm really happy to get back to that stage to have a bit more privacy in my life. This is why it is even more important to invest in owned channels where you own your own data and you're not relying on data that is very murky and questionable through meta or through Google. Making waves. Poppy, the low sugar soda, made headlines recently for all the wrong reasons.
[00:11:51] Here's what they did. They created really cute vending machines full of their drinks, and they sent them to influencers. For the Super Bowl. However, a lot of people in the comments called them out for giving these ludicrously expensive vending machines to already well off influencers, with comments like, The rich getting richer.
[00:12:17] Ollipop, who is a competitor of Poppy, entered the chat, loves stirring the pot, and they commented that these vending machines cost 25, 000 each, which added fuel to the fire. So I want to know from you, do you think that this is a clever influencer marketing strategy or do you think that this is tone deaf AF?
[00:12:38] I actually thought that this was a great strategy. But why did they have to send them to influencers? Why not send it to a school or a workforce with people with disabilities? Or a community organization? All they needed to do was film it and put it on social media instead of leveraging another influencer.
[00:13:01] I don't know. I feel like that would have been more creative. Let me know your thoughts. Uh, by the way, influencer marketing is an example of paid media. Anyway, let me know what you think about Poppy's influencer marketing campaign for Superbowl. All right, that is a wrap for today. A overview of paid, earned, owned and borrowed channels.
[00:13:21] I welcome your questions. I've started a sub stack as the ideal companion to the podcast. It's packed with extra insights, visuals, and nuggets that didn't make it into the episodes. Plus, you can revisit past editions anytime. If you want more, or just prefer to read, you'll love it. Plus, it's a place for us to connect.
[00:13:44] Want the backstage pass to Got Marketing? Subscribe now at gotmarketing. substack. com. And I'll see you next week. Thank you.
You listened right up until the end. So why not hit that Subscribe button and keep the good marketing rolling. Podcast reviews are like warm hugs and they're also the best way to support a small business. You can connect with me, Mia Feilman on Instagram or LinkedIn, and feel free to send me a message. I'm super friendly.
