Media planning is the first step in any advertising campaign and the most crucial to achieving your objectives. Every element of your planning must be carefully considered, from the target audience and its media consumption habits to the media used and the choice of periods.
We are here to help you understand all the subtleties of media planning.
WHAT IS MEDIA PLANNING?
Media planning is a strategic process, within the framework of an advertising campaign, which consists of mobilizing the most important contact points for the identified target, while ensuring that the dollars invested yield the greatest possible value. This is a crucial step in ensuring the success of your campaign. These strategic choices allow you to make an informed choice about the media available, the timing and the opportunities that are available to you.
WHY SHOULD YOU DO MEDIA PLANNING?
These strategic choices are essential for advertising your products and services to the right clientele and for maximizing your investment. This planning allows you, among other things, to have a better understanding of your target and to achieve your objectives.
STEPS TO CREATE YOUR MEDIA PLAN
STEP 1: YOUR BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
The first step in creating your media plan is to establish your company’s needs and challenges. These will guide your objectives and allow you to build your advertising campaign. An analysis of previous actions and results will also help to highlight the different strategies used in the past and eliminate those that were not as successful as expected.
STEP 2: IDENTIFYING THE TARGET
Once you have established your objectives, identifying the target is essential to properly reach them. Knowing your target audience allows you to better address them and understand their media habits, which will greatly assist in choosing from the available media. Tools such as Vividata can help to identify your target.
STEP 3: ASSESS THE OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH MEDIA
Once your target and objectives are clear, it is necessary to look at the opportunities across all media. There are a wide variety of media available, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Here is a list:
- Television:
- Commercials;
- Content integration.
- Radio:
- Advertising;
- Content.
- Print and Digital Newspapers/Magazines:
- Advertorial;
- Content;
- Advertorial.
- Display (offline):
- Outdoor;
- Indoor;
- Bus shelters;
- Bus wraps;
Lumiquai.
- Native;
- Display (digital):
- Programmatic;
- Geofencing;
- Mobile;
- Web.
- Online video;
- Social media;
- Search engines;
- Specialised investments;
- Direct marketing:
- Addressed;
- Unaddressed.
It is then important to compare each medium to discern which ones are the most effective in achieving your objectives and effectively reaching your target audience, all within your budgets. In order for your advertising campaigns to be profitable, it is crucial to ensure that the mediums chosen, the messages conveyed and the budgets established are adapted to your context.
STEP 4: TAILORED DEPLOYMENT
The next step is to plan a customised roll-out with all the data collected previously.
STEP 5: IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MEDIA PLAN
Now it’s time to implement your media plan! It is now time to make the necessary media buys and produce the visual material for your campaigns. Once these steps are completed, the campaigns can be created.
The performance and investment of your campaign should then be measured according to your defined objectives, using tools such as Google Analytics which allows you to measure the impact of a campaign on your website. This will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns and adjust investments if necessary.
STEP 6: PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
As your campaigns come to an end, you will be able to create performance reports to help you get the most out of your investments.
The process can then be repeated over time as your business and needs change.
LETS DO IT!
Do all these steps seem more complex than you imagined? Would you like to have expert advice to accompany and guide you through this process?
Of course, if we’re telling you about it, that means we can help you! Contact us to find out more about media planning or even just to chat!
