Three categories have long dominated the way marketers approach media: there’s the ads you buy, the press coverage you earn, and the content you own.
As far as buckets go, the paid, owned, earned media model was convenient and worked well enough. But things are different today. With search, social and plethora of websites dedicated to every obscure topic imaginable, modern marketers need their paid, earned and owned media to converge.
That’s what Altimeter Group argues in their report “The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned and Earned Media.” The argument is that media are already blending. Distinctions are increasingly superfluous. If marketers want to stay ahead of the curve, they need to bring these disciplines together.
Altimeter offers a lot of great advice and insight in their report. But what do they think is holding marketers back? It boils down to three big challenges.
1. The Teams are Too Far Apart
Many marketing sub-groups are too “territorial, competitive and political,” Altimeter notes. This translates into mindsets that can be miles apart. Many times, the group handling social media sees the need to integrate first, but don’t have the pull to make it happen. Additionally, the silos mean integrated deployments are cumbersome, if not impossible.
2. Agencies are Too Specialized
As Altimeter points out, many of the agencies marketers hire focus on what they know. They might specialize in a specific channel like email, direct, broadcast or social. The result is they struggle to offer fully integrated campaigns. And with new channels and tools constantly emerging, they have a hard time keeping up.
3. The Tools are Too Narrow
As new platforms and channels emerge, many businesses are offering unique products and features for making the most of your marketing investment. But inventiveness isn’t the issue; integration is. The tools often don’t talk to each other, resulting in piecemeal delivery and measurement.
Clearly, integration and communication is the key to a new paid, owned, earned model. You can download the Altimeter report. And you won’t want to miss Altimeter founder Rebecca Lieb’s keynote on this very topic at Eloqua Experience next week. Registration is still available at the event!
