MEDIA PLANNING:

Aims and objectives

 To become familiar with the role of media planning;

 To examine the changing face of the media;
 To identify media characteristics;
 To gain an insight into the media planning process;
 To consider the importance of media strategy and objectives;
 To become familiar with sources of media information;
 To explore the issues of media scheduling.

‘Media is already far more centre stage, media planners can come up with innovative
and effective solutions and media planning can break new ground.’ (Bulman, 1994)

Media planning:
Media planning is the process by which marketers determine how, when and
where an audience is given the selected advertising message. Media planners analyses
the advertisements and strategize the most efficient way to communicate it to the
intended audience.
In today’s competitive marketing landscape, marketers need to serve consumers with
the right message, at the right time, on the right channel in order to see
engagements. Media planning is where marketers determine what these “rights” are.

Media plan:

An effective media plan will result in a set of advertising opportunities that target a
specific audience and fit in with the organization’s marketing budget. When establishing
a media plan, marketers will often factor in the following considerations:

 Who does the ad need to reach?

 What is the marketing budget?

 Conversion goals

 Frequency of the message

  Reach of the message

 How to define success

Types of Media Planning 

To create an effective media strategy for your brand, you must decide what types
of media (traditional or digital) will be cost effective and bring in sales. There are
3 main types of media that are considered when building a media plan: 

 Paid Media - Paid media refers to advertising that is the result of paid
placement from the brand. This includes pay-per-click advertising, display
ads, and branded content. This is the most common way for brands to get
exposure and boost sales. 

 Owned Media - Owned media is content that is owned by your brand, i.e.
blog posts and social media accounts. By increasing the use of the
company’s owned media, you can increase your customer reach and
increase brand awareness. 

 Earned Media - Earned media refers to the publicity the brand gets from
outlets other than their own company. For example, customer reviews,
media coverage, and word-of-mouth are all forms of earned media. This
form of media is valuable because it often comes directly from consumers.
This feedback can also help improve the quality of the product or service
you are offering. 

Challenges of Media Planning

Media planning can be challenging because there are so many contributing factors that
must be accounted for, and because many believe that media planning strategies and
processes have not modernized along with marketing.

Challenges include but are not limited to:

  Consumer-Level Targeting: The media plan must understand consumers at a
granular level to determine what types of messages resonate with them, requiring
in-depth marketing analytics.
 Platform Preference: Brands must also know the various channels and
platforms that target audience members engage with and when. This will allow
them to effectively choose media on which to run campaigns. All of this must be
done with budget and media spend in mind.
 Heavy Budget Focus: Media planning continues to revolve around budget rather
than customer engagement. There is limited flexibility in a budget and plan to
allow marketers to course correct as campaigns run and new insights are
discovered. Modern media planning requires the flexibility to allocate budget to
different channels if they prove to be more successful.
 Integrating Measurements: Because there are so many channels online and
offline, it has become infinitely more difficult for marketers to measure the
success of these campaigns alongside each other to determine which are most
effective and which should be updated.
Today, media planning has to adapt to focus on the consumer experience using flexible
budgets and real-time, unified measurements that allow for media plan optimizations in-
campaign.

Write a Media Plan for Advertising

Creating a media plan is a detailed process that requires planners to consider the needs
of target consumers as well as the goals of the business. Here are the essential steps and
considerations marketers must make when creating a media plan.
Step 1. Determine Media Goals and Objectives
It might be easy to assume that the goal is to drive conversions or engagement;
however, that would oversimplify this step. Goals may vary by department, or there
might be multiple objectives for one campaign. For example, for the sales team and
sales goals, increased revenue is the objective. However, marketing objectives might be
to increase brand awareness. Knowing the main goal of the campaign will determine
how it runs, as well as messaging.

Once clear goals are established, media planners must conduct research into market
trends and the competitive landscape. This research will offer visibility into where
similar brands and goals have achieved success in the past, informing planning
decisions. For example, perhaps a brand has long relied on email campaigns but
research reveals that competitors have had greater success with native ads. This
demonstrates how the organization should shift its plan.

Of course, when determining goals and setting objectives, media plans must factor in
budgets. However, marketers should try to avoid assigning strict dollar amounts to
specific channels. Rather, a flexible approach to marketing budget will allow for
optimizations to be made as campaigns run.

Step 2. Determine Target Audience

Marketing today is driven by creating positive customer experiences. This means that
when developing messaging and selecting where to display those messages across the
media mix, marketers need to be focusing on specific audience needs.
First, marketers need to examine which segment of the overall audience they are trying
to engage. From there, marketers need to look at attribution measurements and
engagement analytics to understand the types of ads these users engage with, which
creative is most effective, and importantly, which channels these consumers use. While
marketers often utilize demographic information such as age, location, general interests,
etc., they should be sure to incorporate person-level data gathered through a unified
measurement approach to get the most tailored results.  
Step 3. Consider Frequency & Reach

Another key component of a media plan is considering reach and frequency. Reach
refers to how many people the campaign will be in front of over a specific amount of
time. Frequency refers to how many times the consumer will be exposed to the ad over
the course of the campaign.  

There are a few popular approaches that marketers take when selecting frequency.
 Continuity: This approach to frequency means that ads will run on a consistent
schedule over the course of the campaign: for example, two ads per week. This
strategy is often used for goods that are not seasonal and require regular
reinforcement to stay top of mind.
 Flighting: “Flights” refer to internment or alternating periods of advertisements
followed by pauses in advertising on the channel altogether. This strategy works
well for seasonal products or for those with less ad budget. For example, when
there is a pause in a flighted television campaign, marketers may choose to run
print ads instead.
 Pulsing: This is a combination of flighting and continuity. Pulsed campaigns will
incorporate low-intensity consistent advertising that is augmented by flights of
higher-intensity ads during times when additional messaging can have a high
impact. 

Step 4: Analyse and Optimize Campaign Performance

One of the most important steps to building a media planning strategy is to continuously
monitor, track, and analyses performance. Marketing campaigns are not “set-it-and-
forget-it,” instead, they require ongoing management to drive maximum ROI. This
hands-on approach allows teams to identify opportunities to optimize performance in
real-time based on what is or isn’t working for each campaign.

Selecting the Right Media Channels:

There are a variety of online and offline channels for marketers to choose from, and
they must use the information they gathered in the research and goal-setting phases to
determine which channels will bring them the most success.
Offline Media

 Magazines: Magazines have a long shelf life and often stay in a consumer’s

possession for two to four weeks after being read. Information in this medium
tends to be retained longer, since people read faster than they can listen.
Research has shown there is a higher amount of trust in magazine ads than in
other forms of media (60 percent of readers trusted the advertisements they saw
in magazines).

Consumers are also less resistant to these kinds of advertisements, as these often
tie in with their interests. Publications tend to be very targeted (e.g., running
magazines or cooking magazines). They reach a secondary audience in addition
to the target audience, since they are passed along to family and friends.
 Newspapers: Advertising with local newspapers is a great way to ensure a
brand’s message stays local. When selecting this medium, marketers can choose
which section of the newspaper ads are placed for further targeting. If they want
to target those interested in fashion, they can select that section of the newspaper
for their ad.
Additionally, newspaper readers are more likely to have higher education and 7
out of 10 of households earning above $100,000 read the newspaper. This can be
important when selecting ad space based on demographics. 
 Radio: Radio ads have a local appeal, allowing you to target specific areas or
regions of the country. It is also an easy medium to build frequency with your
target audience, and is considered a lower-cost medium.. According to research,
exposure to a radio ad and time to purchase is the shortest of any medium.
Additionally, if paired with other forms of media, the overall campaigns
were more effective.
 TV & Cable: This media is highly visual and can demonstrate products in
everyday life. For example, if you sell a cleaning product, consumers can see the
benefits of your product and how these can be applied in their home. This
medium is very prevalent, as the average American watches approximately five
hours of television a day.
  Out of Home: Media such as billboards are large and get attention. In a busy
area, your message can reach 10,000 people in a month. Out of home isn’t
limited by billboards, only your creativity is. Out-of-home is also an extremely
mobile option. (e.g., using displays to advertise luggage at an airport).

Online Media

 Digital Publications: Many digital publications have opportunities for you to

email their database through a personalized email or newsletter. They can track
open rates and understand conversion rates to your site or asset. These are often
specialized publications, making it easy to reach your target audience, and are
great tools for lead generation campaigns.
 PPC: Advertisers can capitalize on search intent. Advertisers can retarget people
who have visited their site. PPC is an extremely cost-effective medium.
 Social Media: Like PPC, social media is an extremely cost-effective medium. It
is also extremely targeted, allowing marketers to target by interests, age,
marriage status, etc. Social platforms are constructed on a basis of community,
which allows your brand to connect more personally with consumers. It also
gives your brand the chance for content to go viral.
 Programmatic Advertising: Programmatic advertising is extremely targeted,
using an algorithm to find and target specific audiences across digital platforms.
When looking into this, there are two methods to consider:
o Programmatic Bidding - uses demand side platforms to buy ads on the
digital market based on target audience.
o Real-Time Bidding - allows advertisers to bid on impressions to their
target audience. If their bid wins, the ad is displayed right away.

Media Planning Strategy 

As marketers begin to strategize on new media plans, they should keep these ideas in
mind:
 Reach: Select outlets and times that will best reach your target audience. For
example, buying ad space during a live televised event (such as a sports game)
 ensures that viewers will be watching the program live and not fast forward
through the commercials.
 Establish clear goals: Is this a branding campaign, or are you looking to
generate leads? How many people are you looking to reach?
 Engagement: How do you encourage people to talk about your brand? Make
sure your ad has a clear direction on what would resonate with this target
audience based on demographics and viewership. Additionally, make sure you
have a way to test the effectiveness of your ad.