How to Use ‘Media Buying’ to Boost Your Business
Last update: 17 August 2021 at 12:16 pm
5.00/5Countless hours are spent trying to create original advertising. However, no matter how creative your ads are, if they don’t reach the right audience, then its potential to attract customers would be wasted. With media buying, you can make the advertisement more effective by showing it to your target audience. Let’s dive deeper into what media buying is and how you can use it.
What is Media Buying?
Media buying is different from owned or earned media. By this, it means that media buying falls under the category of paid media, and it has an important role when it comes to marketing. Media buying is when you acquire media real estate for the best timeslots and spaces. You can buy media spaces in newspapers, television, and online banners.
Advertising goes beyond creating appealing and convincing ads. These are important. However, it must be seen by the right people at the right time for it to have an effect on your bottom line. Your ads’ visibility relies on the media where you will be publishing them.
When you publish an ad on a media, it has a media buying cost that’s independent of the ad creation. This is what’s called the share of buying media space. So, how does media planning and buying work? That’s what we’ll try to share with you in this article. Hopefully, you will be able to learn how to factor in media buying into your company’s marketing budget.
For the advertisement to be visible to the target audience at the right time, you first need to determine the appropriate media spaces and the time slots for this. There are numerous media to choose from, such as online banners for digital media buying, radio slots, magazines, television slots, and newspapers for traditional media.
Various Stages of the Media Buying Process
There are several steps to take in the process of media buying. These stages of the process are essential to ensure that your marketing campaign will be an effective and successful one. Use the steps we will share here as your guide so that you can make the most out of your ad campaign.
Identifying the Target Market
Before you start the process of media buying, the first step is always to know who you want to reach. Who are your target audiences? To begin, you can create a profile that will be able to reflect the personality of your potential clients.
Some of the questions you can ask are their age, gender, average income, location, and others. When you can obtain these pieces of information about your target market, then you will now be able to identify where you can place your ads so that they’ll be most visible.
Studying the Target Audiences
When you have finished identifying your target audiences, then the next step is to do market research. For this step, you will gain a better understanding of your target market as well as their behaviours.
When you know more about them, then you can determine if you’ll go for internet media buying, broadcast television commercials, place ads on magazines, and other platforms that your audiences will most likely spend the most time on.
By understanding your potential customers, you’ll be able to place ads in the most visible places. Doing so will allow you to reach your target market and achieve your business goals. Your market research will help you in this process.
Also, this step of the media buying process will give you insights into what your competitors are doing. You can look into which channels they’re using and whether their strategies are effective. You can then look for a way to improve on what you know so that you will have a more successful marketing campaign.
Setting Your Goals
Once you have the business goals that you want to achieve, it’s time to start creating a plan. It’s crucial that you don’t skip any steps because they are all essential. You also need to ask yourself important questions.
For example, what goals would you want to achieve when you use a particular media? Do you want your brand to become more popular? Do you want to increase your conversion rate or your sales? Make it a point to know the answers to questions like these.
When you begin to identify your goals, it will become much easier to measure the results. You will know whether you’ve achieved them or not. You may also share such information with the media buying agency from which you will buy the media space. You’ll be able to know if this particular space is going to be compatible with the objectives that you have.
Planning Your Strategy
So, now that you have set your goals, you may begin to build your strategy. It should have all the information you need on the channel where you will buy media space. Also included should be the media to use, your budget, and everything else that you’re going to need for your plan to succeed.
Each detail of your strategy is important. Good media buying agencies should be able to spend sufficient time on research and negotiations. Ensure that you determine what media to use because this is going to help in creating your strategy with all the necessary details. With all these pieces of information, you can plan your media campaign.
It’s crucial that these details are kept in order so that you will have an easier time creating a media purchase history. You can refer to it continuously and will save you time in researching for media buying in the future. Such documents will also guide you in executing your media plans throughout the year.
Putting the Plan Into Action
At this point, you already have a well-detailed plant. You’re now ready to put it into action. For this, the first step is to contact the media that you’ve chosen. You or one of the media buying companies you’ve tapped can negotiate the rates for media purchases. Remember to keep a schedule and a budget with you whenever negotiations take place.
When it comes to these meetings, do ask for the best rates. You may even ask for other additions that they can give you if you push through with this deal with them. Keep these in mind at all times: your budget, the schedule, and the deadlines.
When your media purchases are being executed, do track the results of the campaign. You can then make an assessment of how the strategy is working for your business. If, for example, you’re not reaching your business goals, remember that you can adjust the plan whenever necessary.
Preparing for the Launch
Among all the steps in media buying, launching the ad campaign is perhaps the most exciting one. But once you’ve launched the ad, that’s not the end of it. Get in touch with one of the media buying firms of your choice so that your placement can be monitored.
Agencies for media buying solutions will ensure that the ads are being distributed according to what you’ve agreed upon with the media where you made your purchase. The media buying firm should also check if the campaign is delivering the results that you expect.
Measuring the Results of Your Campaign
This step is also critical because you’d want to know if your ad campaign had been successful. You need to determine how your ads were disseminated and whether the campaign was able to meet the goals you’ve defined in your plan.
When you see that there are some things that you want to improve on, then it’s vital to express your thoughts and follow up with the media planning firm that you worked with. Take the time to assess what the flaws had been so you can find the best solutions for them.
If the campaign turned out to be great, then the next step would be to further optimize the marketing campaign. You may consider getting more ad placements to get a wider reach.
Takeaway
When you decide to go for media buying as a part of your marketing strategy, then the best way to do this is to get a media buying agency. This will be very advantageous for you, especially if you feel you’re not that confident with your skills in negotiating for media space.
The media buying firm will speak on your behalf as well as support you every step of the way. The media buying experts are well-experienced in this arena so you can rest easy knowing that you’re in good hands.
Also, you can ask them any questions whenever things are not clear for you. It will be much easier to plan your strategy and put it into action if you are being guided by experts. You can begin your search today for the best media buying company.
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