Media planning entails sourcing and selecting the optimal media platforms for your marketing campaigns, and at the end of the day the importance of media planning comes down to determining the best combination of media to reach a marketing campaign’s objectives.
Creating an effective marketing strategy is a crucial and necessary part of marketing. Nevertheless, the importance of media planning often gets lost because business owners and marketers don’t have the time, tools, or experience required to do it on their own. For example, do you know which marketing platforms to prioritize first? Do you know which have the best ROI? How about what media mix is needed to supply the ideal number of consumer touch points to drive leads and sales? Each marketing platform has its strengths and place in a media plan, dependent on your budget and business goals.
Although the fundamentals of marketing change very little over time, strategic media planning is not entirely as cut and dry as it was in the age of traditional marketing. Today, marketing is all about data and the ability to find statistically significant information within piles and piles of statistics. There is so much more possible than simply applying demographics and having a limited range of media placements on TV, radio, and in print.
The digital landscape is vast and complex, and the importance of media planning and buying has never been more obvious.
Start with Questions
When putting together any marketing plan, it is most important to start with questions, including:
- What is the goal of the campaign: sales, leads, in-store visits?
- What will the measure of success be?
- What is a typical sale or lead worth?
- Are there individuals that you aren’t reaching, but would like to?
- What is a reasonable budget to spend?
All of these questions, among others, should be answered as soon as possible.
Without having a firm grasp of your goals and objectives from the start, it will be hard to measure success later. And without case studies and proof of success, being able to show stakeholders and executives the importance of media planning will become more and more difficult as time goes on.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”Need Media Planning? – Contact Bloom Ads!” style=”flat” color=”info” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomads.com%2Fadvertising-services%2F|title:Need%20Media%20Planning%3F%20-%20Contact%20Bloom%20Ads!||”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Know Your Market and Define Your Audience
The second step after defining goals and ironing out how you will measure them is research. Ask yourself these questions:
- What do you know about the geographic area you want to target?
- Do people need to drive to your store?
- How far is too far to drive?
- What are the commonalities of your current customers?
- What are their ages?
- What interests do they share?
- Are these interests common in your market?
- Can you create an audience profile that will have enough people in it to support your advertising spend?
- Are there too many people?
- Should you refine your audience to be more manageable?
By working with a media buying agency like Bloom Ads, you’ll have access to a group of experienced professionals who not only understand the importance of media planning but have access to the research tools and data necessary to properly define your target audience.
Map Your Consumer Journey
There’s typically a specific path a customer takes before converting to a sale or a lead and knowing this path (or customer journey) is crucial because you want to be able to speak appropriately to users at every stage and offer valuable information which will lead them promptly to the next step. Most of this time, the path is represented as a funnel. The people who have just found out about your or your products or services represent a more significantly sized number of people at the top of the funnel. As people progress, they drop off and move on. This is inevitable for any number of reasons.
The thing to note is that as people become more informed about your company and the audience gets smaller, the people that remain are more and more likely to become customers or new leads.
Prioritize High Intent Users First
If you desire to have the most significant return on investment, you’ll want to go after that smaller, more qualified audience first. It makes sense that if they convert at a higher rate, you should be talking to them first. However, since they are often a much smaller audience, you’ll always need to be reaching out to new potentials and creating a buzz around your brand.
The Right Media Mix
The importance of media planning lies in making sure that you devote budget to the high intenders, but also lay the foundation at every step of a user’s journey to guarantee that you don’t miss opportunities. We recommend starting at the bottom of the consumer funnel and working backward with your marketing budget, trying your best to fill in as many steps as possible.
ROI is at the forefront of every ad campaign we run at Bloom Ads. We recognize the importance of media planning and work to create the best possible marketing strategy for your brand. Learn more about our media planning services on our website or call 818-703-0218 to speak with one of our professionals today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
