< Blog

Why an Owned Platform is the most Important Asset for your digital balance sheet

You might have heard this often, owning a house is better than renting one. It kind of holds correct for the digital strategy for your business.

The parallel I am trying to draw here is that owning a robust digital platform is way more important than renting your presence on digital platforms.

It’s high time to own your ground with a robust and intuitive website /app that will be your number one sales and marketing tool that works for you 24 by 7.That does not mean we forget about other platforms and do not rent at all.

Let me try to explain it all with an analogy. Imagine the whole digital world to be a small city. Your house is your only owned asset you have, that implies you do not pay any rent for it. Also imagine a carnival is taking place in the town, where you can rent space and put up boards to welcome other people to your house. The carnival is a rented platform such as social media, paid media, publisher platforms. You construct a house first, make it an epicenter of all the awesome things you do, design it in a way that it makes visitors have a seamless house tour experience, and equip it with smart and intuitive ways helps to know more about the visitors and eventually become friends with them.

Transactional relationships do not form the basis of sustainable businesses. An owned platform lets you establish a connection (on your own accord) with your prospects/customers that leads to repeat purchase and brand advocacy.

Once the house is ready, the next logical step is that we want people (visitors) coming to our house. Now we need to rent our presence on social, earned and paid channels. We know there are a lot of people present at city center at the carnival (Facebook, Instagram and other paid channels), looking for interesting and relevant things.

You may argue why should we construct the house in the first place; It might look easier to set up a stall at the carnival and do business from there. It will take less time and effort and will be a quicker way to get those numbers that will help us look successful.

Yes, it can work till a particular scale. Apart from transactional relationships with your customers, there are more disadvantages of only renting than you can think off, you have rented this place, and you will always be dependent on the rules set up by the carnival managers (Facebook Algorithms). Below are few regulations that Facebook inflected upon last year:

Only 2 percent of your follower base is your organic reach.

Facebook will prioritize websites with faster loading times in the NewsFeed

Facebook will bury the links to website containing sub-standard content

Penalize high-frequency publishing pages with lower reach

And the biggest announcement from last week, Facebook only wants you to “have meaningful conversations with your family and friends”

As a business, it might not be a worthwhile investment to hire to predict the next change of rules.

Also, at social media platforms like Facebook, one is interested in consuming a particular type of products or service, It might not be the best time to sell an accounting software or sell me milk for next week. There are few categories such as home decor, beauty and fashion that works well for the user context. But that does not mean companies that are into accounting software or producing milk should not rent their presence on social media channels. Hygiene presence on social media helps brands build trust, utilizing brand advocacy from existing customers.

Once a visitor follows the board ( post on Social media) and reaches the house (Website, App), this is your day to shine. We can showcase him awesome things on our own accord. We have no limitations to impress him with our design and capabilities. Since our house is equipped with smart and intuitive processes ( UX, marketing automation, content strategy, videos), we will keep the visitor engaged and even know more about him/her by placing an exciting content offer. exchange cards. We just made a friend there!

From next time, we can keep on communicating with our new friend without waiting for the opportunities provided by the rented presence.

Since our new friend had a good experience at our house, he/she might talk ( Share) about it to his/her friends on different platforms Our house (owned platform) becomes the center of all our activities. We do awesome things here and then distribute it on our rented platforms ranging from social media channels to publisher platforms to discussion forums.

The master control of everything stays at home that is owned by us!

An owned platform lets you establish a connection (on your own accord) with your prospects/customers that leads to repeat purchase and brand advocacy. It helps create more meaningful relationships with prospects and customers.