Media planning is the process of selecting the ideal mix of media channels for your marketing message. It involves research, analysis, and properly allocating your budget. Media planning is a vital aspect of any marketing campaign, whether it’s print, television, radio or digital. The planning process is a time-consuming task that must be handled carefully in order to ensure the highest return on investment (ROI). There are proven methods that can help you determine the best combination of media to meet your business’s goals and objectives. If you’re brand new to media planning, it’s helpful to learn the dos and don’ts.
DO Understand Your Audience
One of the initial steps of media planning is to understand your audience. Conducting market research is a great way learn about your target demographic and ensure that your marketing strategy is designed to reach the right people. A thorough understanding of your audience requires awareness of how your customers typically find your business and where they’re most engaged with ad content. What type of information are they searching for? Do they go online or offline? What media channels are they accessing throughout their day? From here, media objectives can be established.
DO Establish Media Objectives
Once you have a solid understanding of your target audience and the market they’re in, it’s time to dig deep into the media space to determine which channels will be most effective for reaching said audience. Does your audience gravitate toward traditional media like television, print, radio, or newspapers? Are they immersed in digital media like mobile, social sites, and online videos? Consumers receive and engage with content in many different ways, both digitally and traditionally. As a result, it’s your primary mission to find the perfect media mix for reaching your target audience across various media channels.
DO Budget Appropriately
Optimizing your budget and staying within its constraints can be a challenging task. However, it’s imperative as a media planner that you not only determine how to advertise your brand’s message but that you cost-effectively allocate funds. Market analysis and understanding the advertising outlets that your audience consumes will help you decide how to spend the budget when media planning. Will you put 50% toward radio, 25% in mobile ads, 10% in billboards, and then the rest in social media? The call is yours but make sure that it’s a calculated call, and most definitely test your results and adjust the budget accordingly.
DON’T Leave Your Strategy
Under increasing pressure to meet your media objectives and deliver a return on investment, adhering to your strategy can become as great a challenge as originally creating it. As soon as numbers start to deviate from your goals and your focus is placed solely on conversions, it’s easy to subconsciously leave your strategy and forget what should be guiding your efforts. Great media planning relies on developing a dependable strategy and then having the willpower to stick to it.
DON’T Neglect an Omni-channel Approach
In today’s age of multiple screens and channels, people actively consume messaging from a variety of sources. When engaged in media planning, consider implementing an Omni-channel experience. This is a multi-channel approach to advertising that creates an integrated customer experience no matter how or where a customer finds you. This will give you a better chance of reaching all your customers because your ads will be cohesive and visible across multiple channels. For example, you can serve your audience an ad on their computer at work, then remind them later on their phone, then remind them even later on the radio during their drive home. Keep this approach in mind during your media planning.
DON’T Forget to Test and Track
Testing and tracking your media campaign is how you will determine success, as well as the adjustments that need to be made. This is the only way to really see improvement and determine the ROI of your marketing plan. Focus on the metrics that help you understand the impact of your efforts, narrowing it down to the most important numbers. Maybe it’s your conversion rates or lead count, but be sure to use that data to make the necessary changes to your media plan.
Partner with Strategic Marketing for Expert Media Planning
Strategic Marketing is a full-service advertising agency with years of experience planning and buying media for numerous clients. We utilize both established and innovative media tactics to ensure that your messages connect with your target audience in the most cost-effective way possible. We specialize in media planning for several different advertising outlets, such as television, radio, print, out-of-home, pay-per-click and display advertising. We can streamline the media planning process, saving you time and money to help maximize your ROI. To learn more, visit our website or contact us today by calling (561) 688-8155.
