MEDIA STRATEGY
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MEDIA STRATEGY
Choosing a Media Specialist
Here are some simple rules:
✔ Ensure that you will receive advice from a senior, qualified practitioner at all times
✔ Make sure that the business is not pitched by senior executives only to be passed on to junior staff to execute the plans.
✔ That the media agency is available 7 days a week…the media does not sleep…nor does your business
✔ Beware of cheap airtime and space deals that end up as media clutter
✔ Check value added media time or space. What is incremental ROI
✔ Ensure your core audience is targeted before other considerations
✔ Examine audience extensions for secondary audience impact
✔ Review trends and fluctuations in media formats that fit your needs
✔ Do not buy purely on survey numbers examine the media environment
✔ The media advisor needs to be passionate about the media, not simply a transaction house. Is your trusted media advisor on call 7 days a week?
Managing Too Many Media Channels
Start from the position of being " Media Neutral". Select only specific media capable of maximising impact and avoid diluting your media dollars over multiple channels . It is always best to concentrate on specific time zone, days of the week or specialty positioning to impact target market. Generally, media buying spread randomly will not achieve your aims. Media is too diverse with increasing audience fragmentation thereby decreasing audience numbers in real terms. Every dollar is important to increase impact with effective frequency. As the digital and online media space grows topsy turvy we are at a point of too much media. The audiences are not growing at the same pace and as result audiences are reduced by medium and scattered over too many media outlets.
This means less gross audience, less market impact. But your costs do not go down.
Effective media buying is the number one priority.
Look at the lifestyle/format of the media channel/ media outlet. Does it compliment your brand or service? In many cases the number one media channel is not always the best one…aim to be in a cost effective and durable media environment. Seek those media outlets that best mirror your audience and avoid misplacement in mediums without compatibility to your offering. Avoid cheap media deals that look good on a plan but only deliver wall paper. You know the type.....bland, boring and lacking effective impact.
Maximise Your Media For Your Budget
A key example of maximising your budget is examining audience shifts during the campaign and measuring the actual versus planned placement.
What does it mean when audiences drift away from your chosen media after you bought the plan and how does that audience drop affect your pricing?
Did you receive less for the same money? Do you measure as you go and have a benchmark to measure return on investment?
That means don't wait till the media plan has finished to measure what you achieved.Do it on the way through. During this assessment it is good practice to evaluate the added value and address the quantitative and qualitative results.
Maximisation also means more than buying cheap media deals that show you bought " a lot" for your dollar but in effect never achieved a quality audience result.
Maximising your budget goes far beyond hoping it might work. Be Media Smart and engage with a professional that knows both sides of media.
Firstly the theory of it all and secondly the practical experiences and knows where the traps exist.
Media looks easy and can be very deceiving. Its a lure for your money, but the fish don't always jump on your hook.
Media Futures has developed proven processes to maximise your media budget.
Media Strategist's Inside Secrets on Really Targeting Your Market
The media specialist should clearly define placement position and check competitive brands wherever possible. There is nothing worse than being placed back to back with competitors. How often have you been assured of a " clean media environment" only to be surrounded by competitors and your message impact is diluted ?
Who did not check in advance? There is no guarantee that what you bought will appear or be heard in the promised environment. Remember that you buy advertising space and time no content or programmes.
Your messages are an adjunct to the reason the media exists.
The media exists is to provide a service, paid or free to an audience.
You just happen to be buying time or space in and around audiences. Are you secondary to the main game? Yes you are and you also pay someone else's bills as a result.
Conducting Media Strategy and getting right up front will save you grief, pain and money over the course of your campaign.
Seek advice from your media specialist on media trends that only comes through intimate market knowledge. You are buying into the future not the past, so information collection is important in assessing the forward market conditions.
Never assume that what happened yesterday or what you previously bought will be the same in the future.
Media is a moving feast. When benchmarking audience and impact through recognised syndicated media research data, recognise that research is a guideline not a definitive result. So much can change after the research on a both a quantitative and qualitative basis has been undertaken.
Our advice is to take your time and seek qualified independent consultation from a dedicated media specialist.
Ensure the best fit is modelled around your business and not in the interest of the media buyer or the media themselves.
Subjectivity Will Kill Your Media Buying
Everyone is a media expert. When this expert knowledge is overlayed into the commercial scene the "expert" knowledge can work against the outcomes as subjectivity creeps into the equation.
This is as simple as the common phrase" oh my best friend likes that website, or we always watch that TV programme........."
When you hear comments like this ask for hard audience numbers from a reputable and industry recognised research company.
Subjectivity claims and unaudited mediums will only waste your time and money.
The fact is, media is so diverse that what you like is not necessarily what the the broader market consume. Hence subjectivity can be a very bad influence.
Media has become more fickle than ever and audience tastes vary by demographic, gender, income, location, lifestyle, interests and beliefs.
If subjectivity creeps in to rule your media decisions then generally it is a biased view that can backfire badly.
Being subjective, rather than objective may result in your hard earned media dollars being wasted just for the privilege of hearing or seeing your message in your own familiar media environment or what you thought was OK.
So the message is simple...engage a media specialist to give impartial unbiased media advice. Maybe it's not what you want to hear ...but it's the way to make rational decisions backed up with audited audience numbers and without the subjectivity.