Owned Media Is The New Marketing Moat

Paths to Owning Access to Your Audience

Understanding where you stand in the Audience Access Hierarchy is a start. The next step is building, or reclaiming, greater control over your audience. Whether you’re just getting started or optimizing an established strategy, we put together a few options that will help you move your audience relationships closer to Level 1: full access & ownership.

1. Grow Your Audience Organically (and Intentionally)

This is the foundational path to audience ownership and the most sustainable over time. But it only works if you deliberately guide anonymous visitors into known relationships.

Recommendations:

• Create opt-ins for high-value content that audiences definitely want to download. The more you offer content that helps audiences with their challenges, the more engaged they will be. These can include industry or job specific buyer guides, RFP templates, industry-specific checklists, how-to guides or tools. These not only attract qualified traffic but provide a natural opt-in point to your email list.

• Create content hubs. Essentially creating a learning center for your audience to learn how to better do their job, how to better use your product/service, etc. These learning hubs are filled with as much information for audiences to feel they have enough information to make an informed buying decision or enough to be better at the job they are doing. Each page would include clear CTAs for subscribing to newsletters, downloading gated content, or joining webinars.

• Build or provide free useful tools for your audience to use. Every industry has something to measure, provide some kind of calculator. Provide template spreadsheets, chrome extension, a plugin or any tool that automates. As long as the tool is useful it can generate thousands of engagement points where you can drive CTAs.  

Why it matters:
Organic audience growth compounds. It lowers customer acquisition costs and gives you an owned channel you can tap into at any time. This path builds trust gradually and can become one of the most powerful distribution engines over time.

2. Build a Media Brand Within Your Business

Becoming a destination, not just a vendor, is one of the fastest ways to shift from being discovered occasionally to being followed consistently. A media brand captures ongoing attention, authority and direct access. Think Hubspot Learning center. They didn’t simply build a blog about their CRM. What started as a content hub became a complete learning center for small businesses, online businesses to learn marketing.

Recommendations:

• Launch a content property with a distinct editorial voice (e.g., a blog, podcast, video series, or newsletter) that reflects your audience’s needs, not just your product.

• Develop content series instead of one-offs. Examples include monthly industry briefings, customer spotlight interviews, or behind-the-scenes product walkthroughs.

• Provide valuable content to download as your primary audience capture mechanism. 

Why it matters:
Media brands attract and retain attention better than regular corporate blogs or content. They position your business as a thought leader while attracting your ideal audience (without paying ad networks to drive them to you).

3. Acquire an Audience That Already Exists

Audience acquisition through media M&A or partnerships is a high-leverage move for companies that want to scale faster. It bypasses the slow build phase and brings in an audience that is already knowledgeable and engaged with your type of products or services. 

Recommendations:

• Look for media that already reach your ideal audience, but aren’t monetized to their full potential. (or else they will cost too much for you to purchase)

• Targets can be generic or industry specific. For instance, if you sell software to the small business sector, then acquiring a small business blog with 100,000 subscriber list makes sense. If you sell a project management tool, purchasing a site with project manager memberships make sense.

• Further examples include: 

  • newsletters, blog specific sites, podcasts, events & conferences, online webinar sites, content apps, membership sites, groups in your niche, affiliate sites with subscribers or members, etc

• How to think of targets: Think of complementary businesses or media that you would love to partner with because they have your ideal audience as subscribers. Now consider acquiring them instead.

Remember to verify engagement metrics of the properties you are considering acquiring. Such as open rates, unsubscribes, social sharing, content downloads, etc. A large but inactive list has limited value.

Why it matters:
Buying audience properties accelerates trust and access. It also allows you to bypass search, Ad and social platform dependency. 

4. Build a Community 

Online communities give your audience a space to engage with peers, share challenges and connect with your brand beyond content. Done right, they can become retention engines.

Recommendations:

• Choose a platform that fits your audience’s behavior: Slack or Discord for fast-paced professional conversations; Circle or Facebook for structured discussions; Thinkific and Skool for courses.

• Seed the community with ambassadors, power users, or early adopters who can model participation and spark conversation.

• Offer value that isn’t available anywhere else, such as exclusive content, product betas, private training or networking opportunities.

Why it matters:
Communities aren’t just for retention. They are also leveraged as audience listening/analysis tools. Yes, they take investment in time, content and engagement. However, they give your audience a reason to return and interact and provides you with a platform you can control.

5. Integrate Audiences Into Your Product

One of the most underutilized paths to audience access ownership is the product itself. Your app or platform is a direct line to your audience and users. It is the perfect place to deepen relationships. Yet too many simply use it as the product sales vehicle or the product utilization tool instead of building engagement with your existing audience. This is especially true for products/services that offer freemium or trial options.

Recommendations:

• Use onboarding process to drive newsletter signups, demo requests, or product education series. Capture attention of the audience while motivation is high.

• Offer downloadable tools or special features (like templates, scripts, or reports) in exchange for opt-in.

Why it matters:
Integrating audience building into your product experience creates a seamless relationship building process. You are able to turn users into subscribers and subscribers into customers within your own ecosystem that you control.