Introduction
When it comes time to promote a product or company, there are several options to consider for your campaign. First, asking yourself the right questions and understanding what challenges and goals you want to achieve is essential. Whether it’s press relations, web marketing, or creating interactive social media content, there are so many opportunities that you can almost get lost. Among the latter, we will talk about media buying and planning, a concrete and effective way of highlighting your brand’s image for the target audience, thanks to purchasing advertising spaces on various channels (traditional and digital).
So, what is media buying?
Media buying on the Internet is the process of buying advertising space on the Internet to promote a company, product, or service. This may include purchase banner ads, sponsored links, video ads, or social ads. This is a concrete and effective way of promoting the brand image among a specific target audience.
The advantage of this paid content is that it provides a controlled distribution of key messages while increasing the visibility and popularity of the company.
Various options are available to companies that want to bring their information to the masses. Among them is media buying. The principle is to broadcast your advertising messages on the media most suitable for your campaign. It can be advertising in:
- newspapers;
- magazines;
- television commercial;
- radio clip;
- banner on the website;
- partnering with a podcast…
The possibilities are almost endless now. We are talking about a media buying company and planning because you buy visibility on the media.
Media buying campaign: how does it work?
The main rule of a media buying campaign is that it is prepared and expected. First, it is necessary to study the market to identify trends. It is also essential to define your goal, understand its expectations and needs, and create a typical profile or “buyer persona.” The next step is to set goals: make your brand known, make people want to buy your products, and promote a new service… Once done, you can work on your campaign message and think about visual effects. So, let’s look at the media buying company and its planning aspects.
How to create a strategy?
To choose the strategy that works best for your project, there is a way to build an internal action plan. However, to make the right choice, we recommend contacting a communications agency such as SmartyAds, which can provide sound advice on the sector while allowing you to benefit from the experience of a skilled team able to find the right opportunities for your brand to shine on the pages of the World Wide Web.
Choosing a platform
First, you need to approach the choice of media wisely. This choice depends on your target audience and the message you want to convey. For example, young people are more interested in social networks than in the press. Also, not all media is available on the same budget.
Campaign evaluation
After the media plan is drawn up, it is vital to measure the effectiveness of your campaign using indicators such as the number of sales, customers, likes, comments, clicks, shares, etc. This review of operations provides an opportunity to take a step back from your choices and the results obtained.
Planning and budgeting
Unlike traditional PR campaigns, media buying requires payment of a certain amount of money for the publication of an article, a mention on the radio, or in a blog. The benefit of this exclusively paid content is that it ensures a controlled distribution of your key messages while increasing your visibility and popularity.
To set up a media buying company with good planning, you need to analyze your situation with the help of market research to determine the budget for media campaigning. Depending on the flexibility of your finances, various advantages are available to you, including the possibility of reaching a wider audience (regional and national media) or the availability of advertising text.
But it is worth noting that specialists like SmartyAds, thanks to a diverse contact book and moral knowledge of the industry, can quickly build a solid list of media that meets your criteria. To do this, it is necessary to analyze the received media kits to compare information related to content formats (half-page, full-page, banner, etc.) and the rates charged. Amounts may vary from one media outlet to another, mainly due to the specialization or geographic coverage you are targeting (e.g., city, region, province, or country).
In this sense, the agency can use its valuable connections to negotiate prices and details of the deal, highlighting the type of advertising you have in mind. Once approved, all that’s left to do is approve the draft post before you officially launch your campaign!
Our tips for a successful media planning strategy
Even before starting a media planning campaign, it is essential to define your goal, in other words, the audience for which the advertising campaign is intended. The advertising message must be clear and tailored to your target audience. There is no need to spray yourself at the risk of being counterproductive. It’s better to get your message straight to the point so it’s easier to remember.
Likewise, you should choose a sales channel adapted to your potential customers. Commercials on radio and television, insertion in paper magazines or press, distribution of leaflets, implementation of organic citation campaigns, social networks… As explained earlier, there are many possibilities. The idea is not to over-engage your audience but to focus on quality.
Conclusion
Media buying is a great way to increase your visibility while reaching a specific target audience. Sometimes, it’s also a way to make a statement in sometimes harder-to-reach markets. English-language media, for example, tend to favor media buying over organic mentions. If you want to expand on a larger scale, it will be interesting to integrate an advertising budget into your strategy.