Paid, Earned, and Owned Media: The Modern Digital Marketing Trifecta:

When your goals involve patient engagement and acquisition, consider these owned, earned and paid media examples when planning your modern marketing strategy and budget.

The strate­gic appli­ca­tion of mod­ern dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing solu­tions can take your brand to new heights. Explore these organ­ic and paid media exam­ples to inspire your mar­ket­ing strategy.

Paid Media

For­mer­ly known as: Adver­tis­ing

What it is: Buy­ing space/time on tra­di­tion­al and online channels

Why you need it: To pro­mote your owned media and gen­er­ate demand for spe­cif­ic services

Exam­ples:

• Search engine advertising
• Social media advertising
• Tra­di­tion­al adver­tis­ing (TV/radio/print)

Here’s one of our favorite paid media exam­ples:Amer­i­can Health Imag­ing (AHI) is part of US Radi­ol­o­gy Spe­cial­ists, the largest out­pa­tient imag­ing provider in the coun­try. AHI lever­ages paid media to reach med­ical imag­ing prospects; in fact, a recent search cam­paign gen­er­at­ed more than 2,000 con­ver­sions dur­ing the height of the pan­dem­ic.

Earned Media

For­mer­ly known as: Public/Media Relations

What it is: Recog­ni­tion for exper­tise and thought lead­er­ship through unpaid placements

Why you need it: To increase awareness/preference and influ­ence per­cep­tion for your brand to gen­er­ate new leads

Exam­ples:

• Edi­to­r­i­al place­ment in nation­al pub­li­ca­tions and trade journals
• Physi­cian inter­views on TV/radio
• Pos­i­tive consumer/patient reviews
• “Ask the Doc” col­umn in the local newspaper

Here’s one of our favorite earned media exam­ples: Children’s Mer­cy Health in Kansas City is fre­quent­ly fea­tured in nation­al and local media, includ­ing this arti­cle on a Kansas tod­dler who received three heart surg­eries before his third birthday.

Owned Media

For­mer­ly known as: Brand­ed Content

What it is: Con­tent that your orga­ni­za­tion controls.

Why you need it: To engage con­sumers and dif­fer­en­ti­ate your brand through con­tent that guides patients on the health­care journey

Exam­ples:

• Website/Blog
• Social media accounts
• Email newslet­ter
• Print pub­li­ca­tion
• Mobile appli­ca­tion
• Direct mail
• Com­mu­ni­ty events
• Oth­er mod­ern mar­ket­ing directives

Here’s one of our favorite owned media exam­ples: Methodist Health Sys­tem pro­duces a 48-page print pub­li­ca­tion titled SHINE along with a con­tent hub at SHINEOnlineHealth.com. In Decem­ber 2020, SHINE Online gen­er­at­ed near­ly 100,000 page views—with 80% com­ing from new users. Traf­fic con­tin­ues to grow each month and the sys­tem’s con­tent strat­e­gy has also gen­er­at­ed a sig­nif­i­cant amount of ser­vice line leads, with more than 7,500 con­ver­sions since August 2019.