vs. Buildium
AppFolio
Per-unit price and inbound sales to fee managers
- What it did
- Billed by units managed (2009); search, content and events
- Buildium
- Also per unit, but plans published only to 650 units (2007)
Strategy Map›Layer 5 · Go-to-Market Strategy›Distribution Strategy/Owned and paid reach+ from outside the named canon
Owned Media
What is Owned Media?
A material share of new customers arrives through reach the company owns (its content, education, community, organic search, direct or brand traffic) rather than paid media or sales.
How Owned Media works
Content, search and direct traffic the company owns bring new customers without paying for each one, and the route persists when spending stops.
How companies won with Owned Media
From the win chains in Strategy Canon case studies: what the winner did, and what its rival did at the same step.
vs. Linode
DigitalOcean
Beginner tutorials scaled with paid community writers
- What it did
- First hire Etel Sverdlov wrote the first several hundred articles
- Linode
- Respected Linode Library (2013); paid writer program at $100 a guide from January 2014
vs. Marketo · 2006–14
HubSpot
Teach inbound marketing and own the term
- What it did
- Website Grader and the blog diagnosed a buyer's site and led to sales calls
- Marketo
- Sold primarily through a direct sales force from San Mateo, Atlanta, Dublin, Tokyo, Sydney and London (2013–14 filings)
vs. Monster · 2003–10
Viral growth on free membership: every invitation adds a member and a connection
- What it did
- An accepted invitation makes a connected member
- Monster
- No invitation loop: the pool grew by active seekers posting resumes (2003)
Also tagged: Airbnb · BigCommerce · Duolingo · Freshworks · GoodRx · Reddit · Sprout Social · SurveyMonkey · Tripadvisor · Zendesk · Zillow
The question to ask of a company
Which owned channel brings new customers, and how much of new business does it supply?
Who names it
| Author | What they call it / where it appears |
|---|---|
| Halligan & Shah + | Inbound marketing |
| Weinberg & Mares + | Content, SEO and community channels |
Note. Near miss: A newsletter with two million readers and no documented customers from it. Does not count: Word of mouth and referrals (Customer Referrals); product virality where each use exposes the product (Growth Loop); paid media including podcast reads and TV. A mixed 'organic' share that includes referrals counts only if the source says owned channels dominate it. A mixed 'organic' share counts only when the source says owned channels (content, search, direct) make up most of it.