What Does Media Mean? What Does a Media Planning Agency Do?
These days, business owners all over the world are interested in attaining professional services that will help ensure that their companies undergo ongoing expansion that leads to increased conversion rates as well as an ever-widening base of loyal customers. Although there are several types of services that business owners could invest in to accomplish this objective, attaining assistance from a media agency can be a particularly effective strategy to employ. To learn more about media agencies and how using their services can help your business grow, please review the brief yet thorough guide that appears below:
Media Agency Basics
Although defined broadly, the term “media agency” is generally used to reference a business that is dedicated to creating and executing advertising campaigns (and any other form of promotional platform) on behalf of its clients. Typically, media agencies exist independently of their clients, meaning that they are not a department of the client’s company but rather exist as a separate entity that can offer an “outside” point of view regarding how to optimize the marketing process.
Generally, media agencies exist as corporations, businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. Media agencies can be hired for a plethora of purposes, including to produce radio commercials, television commercials, home advertising, mobile advertising, online advertising, and AR advertising.
Types of Media Agencies
There are a wide variety of media agencies that offer their advertising services to clients. Some of them include:
Full Service Agencies
Full service agencies are involved in every component of the advertising process, which can include things such as creating, planning, performing research, selecting media, and producing advertisements. In some cases, a full service agency will offer non-advertising services such as interactive marketing and web site design, direct market promotion programs, public relations, and strategic market planning. Some of the larger full service agencies will oftentimes run departments responsible for conducting marketing research that will result in the accumulation of data that can be used to streamline and optimize the advertising process. Additionally, full service agencies will offer clients direct access to all of the advertising functions included in the campaign, which can include Creative Direction, Account Management, Art Direction, Copywriting, Media Planning, and Ad Production.
Creative Agencies
Creative agencies are responsible for designing and implementing any component of the media campaign that involves generating something new, or “creative.” In short, creative agencies are responsible for literally creating the ideas, images, texts, and other visual components that function as the foundation of the branding and advertisement strategy.
Digital Agencies
Digital agencies are a distinct form of a media agency. Typically, they specialize in empowering businesses to market their goods and services via digital platforms, specifically the internet. Other digital platforms include the kiosks, DVDs, CD-ROMs, and devices such as the iPod and smartphone. Some of the services that digital agencies will oftentimes offer include web design and development, internet marketing, search engine marketing, e-commerce consulting, e-business, and AR advertising. Digital agencies began gaining prominence before traditional marketing companies were willing to fully embrace the idea of internet advertising. Because they are capable of offering a wide range of effective services, many digital agencies grew at a startling rate. At the same time, however, some digital agency companies have downsized as a result of perpetually evolving market conditions. Digital agencies can offer services including but not limited to creative, strategy, video, design, programming (Flash), development, management, fulfillment reporting, and deployment. In many cases, a digital agency will offer digital brand development services as well as interactive marketing and communications strategy, e-learning Tools, interactive video brand experiences, rich media campaigns, email marketing, PPC campaign management, SEO/SEM services, web application development, ROI assessment, overall data mining, web application development, and content management services. The world of digital media incorporates four elements: social media, digital public relations, web design and applications, and digital media planning.
Social Media Agencies
In this contemporary era, the world of social media has blown up as people all over the world log onto channels like Twitter and Facebook for the purpose of doing business or being social. In capitalizing on this reality, social media agencies offer businesses the opportunity to systematically, strategically advertise their goods and services on platforms like Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. There are numerous strategies that a social media agency could employ to help a business grow, including the launching of a Twitter campaign that involves systematically sending tweets out that include links to the business owner’s product pages.
Specialized Agencies
In many cases, a media agency will specialize in designing and developing advertising campaigns for businesses that operate within a distinct sector, such as health, medicine, sports, education, law, nutrition, etc.
What does a media buying company do?
The media buying industry is a subsidiary of the advertising industry and helps to secure media space for the best price and location. The end goal of media buying is ensuring the highest value based on price and location of various forms of media. Getting the best value for the advertisement is paramount.
Creating Value for Clients
Demographics and pricing are two important factors in terms of securing media space for marketing purposes. In other words, affordably advertising to the right demographic will ultimately ensure the highest value for the client.
Brand Labs in New York, as an example, blends design, advertising and multimedia elements to deliver the best value to its extensive client base.
Since the average media buyer is coming to the decision based on the popularity of the advertising mediums that will be used as well as prior industry experience, finding a media buying company with industry experience is essential.
Media Buying FAQ
Individuals who are interested in pursuing careers within the media sector should note that media buying plays an integral role within this realm. By learning more about what media buying is as well as its significant within the media sphere, people who want to work within this field or simply understand it better can attain the information necessary to do so.
Media Buying Basics
Media buying is a sphere within the advertising management sector that involves obtaining media real estate at an ideal price with optimal placement. Thus the primary component of media buying involves negotiating placement and price to make sure that a company attains the best possible rate and space for its advertisements. The individuals responsible for negotiating price and placement are referred to as “media buyers” within the workplace sector. These days, media buyers find themselves performing their job duties with advanced algorithms in real-time.
The Role Of The Media Buyer
As the individuals who are responsible for purchasing time and marketing space for advertisement purposes, media buyers perform several tasks. In addition to determining what they should buy, media buyers are responsible for carefully evaluating factors pertaining to pricing rates, station formats, geographic, psychographics, and demographics that relate to the client’s unique product and/or service goals. In order to ensure that the marketing campaign functions effectively, media buyers must optimize the things they buy, and doing so is contingent upon several factors. Some of the factors include the budget, medium form (print, TV, internet, radio), medium quality (time of day for the broadcast, target audience, etc.), and how much space and time will be necessary to make the advertising campaign effective.
Media buyers can make purchases at the spot, regional, or national level. When working at the national level, media buyers may need to make decisions on a state-by-state basis. This is important and necessary because time, space, demand of leads, rates, and state licenses vary from one state to another. National media buyers will also require national media planning in order to create a form of media marketing and advertising that can be utilized from one area to another while simultaneously functioning effectively at a national level.
General Marketing Media Buyers/Direct Response Media Buyers
It’s important to note that there are distinctions between the general marketing media buyer and the direct response media buyer. Specifically, the general market media buyer is responsible for enacting or actualizing media plans that were put together by professional media planners. To optimize the purchasing process, GMMB’s devise media schedules and negotiate rates based on the recommendations put together by professional media planners. By using media plans drafted by the media planner, GMMB’s utilize their cost guides. On the other hand, the DRMB knows which stations will generate a certain amount of responses as well as what type of return on investment (ROI) can be expected. Based on that knowledge, DRMB’s are effective in negotiating functional rates as well as in purchasing media from the right stations. DRMB’s work by attaching unique, specific phone numbers to every station from which they purchase media. They also track their sales and then make adjustments based on the media plan in order to optimize the ROI. Because of the methodologies appropriated by the DRMB, direct response marketing is oftentimes viewed as a specialized sector within the world of media buying.
Media Research Planning
Media research planning is a process completed by both media buyers and media specialists. The amount of research media buyers and specialists will be required to do is contingent upon the product and/or service in question. Media research is very important because it empowers media specialists and buyers to make prudent decisions regarding their allotted budgets. The research will typically involve a thorough investigation of the target market as well as which mediums will be most effective in reaching the largest number of people. Media planners have a variety of media outlets that they can utilize, including both traditional and new formats. Some of the traditional media options include TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. Some of the new media options include internet, satellite radio, cable TV, and satellite TV.
As many media buying experts know, the internet provides people with a lot of advertising options. Some online media options include search engines, social media, referral links, emails, banners, web portals, video clips, and interactive games. Media specialists and planners have the ability to select which media formats they utilize to accomplish their advertising objectives, which can range from making a sale to effectively conveying an idea or message. Additionally, they can strategize in order to effectively use positioning and product placement. Direct Response Advertisers and Remnant Advertisers can also insert ads as print ads in magazines and newspapers, buy impressions for ads on the internet, and air commercials on television or the radio.
What does a media planning company do?
Media planning is the best way for businesses to reach their target audience. Media planners will ensure that the right type of message is appearing at the right time, which allows companies to contact new and existing customers about their latest products and services.
Think of media planning as the combination between art and science. The best media planners have a deep and varied skill set, allowing them to create the most compelling ad campaigns. A media planner must be able to research consumer habits and trends so that their client’s desired customers can be determined. In addition, media planners must be able to create a unique and exciting way to deliver communications so that customers get excited about the message they receive.
Media Planning Techniques –
By combining top notch research methods, extensive experience in the field, and proper analysis skills, media planners determine the types of customers a client’s communications need to reach.
Analyzing campaigns that were conducted in the past is a good way to plan for the present and future. Media planners will sort through those campaigns and pick the elements that worked very well. By dropping unsuccessful segments and replacing them with better ideas, media planners can improve the reach and content of the message delivered by a client.
Researching past campaigns is vital when dealing with direct response campaigns. These types of campaigns want an immediate and direct return on their investment. By combining elements of the campaign that worked previously with newer ideas, media planners can find the best way to reach a lot of consumers in a short space of time.
All media planners have the core aim of creating an ad campaign that gets a concise message across to as many people as possible. If this campaign can be delivered with minimum resources and wastage, that is even better.
The moment a decision is made on the media, team work is required with creative agencies to produce the ads. Any successful media planner needs to work with the best creative agencies. All the research and analysis in the world will not matter if the created ads are not unique, creative and engaging.
Media Planning –
By working with some of the best advertisers in the region, Brand Labs NY can deliver a fantastic end product to a client. There are many steps involved in creating a successful campaign. The moment a client brings in a request, the media planners try to learn as much as possible about the target audience.
By understanding the age, demographics and media usage of the target audience, we can go about creating the most suitable ad campaign. With the introduction of social media and the internet, media planning has become even more complicated. For example, a client that wants to target a younger audience should not be placing ads in news or science magazines.
Skills Required in Media Planning –
The success of any media planning company is based on the people working for them. At Brand Labs NY, we employ only the very best people to assist our clients. Being a successful media planner requires the right combination of skills. Media planners should understand how the media works, successfully analyze consumption data, think creatively about new ad campaign opportunities, and work diligently to create a singular message for the client.
Media planners often work very closely with consumer insight experts. Media planning can only be successful if we can understand what consumers are reading, watching and listening on a regular basis. Consumer insight also allows our media planners to understand the types of messages that resonate with the target audience.
The complexity of media planning is increasing every year. There was a time when ad campaigns were limited to magazines, billboards, radio and television. With technology advancing at such a rapid rate, the types of media customers are consuming will keep increasing. Media planners have to keep up with this technology and understand how new media can help them with ad campaigns.
Advantages of Media Planning –
When media planning is done right, the result is compelling advertisements being delivered the right way, in the right areas and at the appropriate time.
Compelling Messages: A media campaign cannot be successful if the message is weak. By understanding the target audience and the client’s ideas, the ad campaign must work to deliver the right type of slogans and messages. Knowing the behavior of a target audience can help with this, because it shows media planners the best way to communicate with those individuals.
Correct Media: The best type of message is useless if it is not appearing in the proper media outlets. Knowing the types of media that the target audience consumes will help media planners pick their targets wisely. For example, a younger audience would be best reached through ad campaigns on websites and social media networks.
Proper Time: By knowing when a target audience will be open to receiving an ad campaign, media planners know when to get the message out. A deep understanding of the target audience can help with the timing. For example, if the client is advertising overcoats and jackets, the message should be delivered right before and during the winter months.
Combining Information –
Our media planners will gather all the relevant information and use it to create a singularity of message for all the ad campaigns. All types of information, such as media data, television ratings, consumer details and past campaign success is used to hone the ad campaign’s structure.
With so much data and many different ideas floating around, media planning can be rather challenging. With so much new media data arriving, including information from the internet, this job has become even more complicated. Only the best media planners can analyze what information is relevant to the advertising campaign.
Our experienced media planners try to find unique ways to interact with consumers, which helps clients get a leg up on their competition.
Your campaign is only as good as your media purchaser
In essence, Media Purchasing is a smaller form of advertising management and basically has to do with the attainment of what is known as media real estate. The negotiations for media purchasing revolve around two core aspects, including earning the best placement possible for your advertisements and obtaining the right price for the media real estate. The placement of your ads will oftentimes correlate with how high the price is
What is Media Purchasing and What Does It Entail
As mentioned previously, media purchasing at its most basic form has to do with the act of purchasing real estate in media, providing a means to get your advertisements onto the market for potential customers to see. While the primary factors of media purchasing, also commonly referred to as media buying, basically have to do with choosing the best placement for your advertisement and finding the right price, there are several other factors that go into media purchasing. It’s important to understand that what matters most about your advertising is if the right customers are able to view that advertisement. For example, a popular beer brand is going to want to air their advertisements during such events as the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals, instead of during children’s Television shows. This tends to be one of the most difficult aspects of media purchasing. You need to find the right time and place to air your advertisements, which is something that we will help you with.
Identifying the right placement for your ad and purchasing the media for it involves a number of steps in order to do so successfully. The very first thing that needs to be done before even thinking of progressing through the media purchasing process is to identify the target market for your product. This is one of the trickiest portions of advertisement in general and is something that we can aid you in. We will help you to find your target market by addressing the specific age, gender and income of the consumers that would respond the most positively to your product and advertisement in general. This is readily accomplished through further research of the target market, which goes into the eventual purchasing of media space. It’s not simply important to identify the target market, you also need to know such variables as what they spend the most time doing, whether reading magazines, surfing the internet or watching TV. Understanding this goes a long way in understanding how and when to go forward with media purchasing. We will get you through this process as efficiently as possible and will have you purchasing the best media that is available for your brand.
Following the research phase of the media purchasing process, our firm will assist you in setting the objectives for what you actually want to do with the media buys that you purchase. Are you simply looking to inform the customer about a specific product or do you want to focus on your company as a whole? These things matter and will help you to understand exactly where and when to purchase media that will work best in targeting the right customers. After this, it’s finally time for us to help you create a fully-defined strategy for your advertisements that will allow you to target the most customers with whichever placements of media you purchase. We will provide you with assistance on identifying the exact outlets that you will purchase media from and what your overall budget is for these media buys. As creating a plan is arguably one of the most difficult aspects of media purchasing, you can be assured that Brand Labs NY will be there with you every step of the way during this portion of the process.
You will also find that our negotiation skills are top notch and will provide you with the best deal available. The negotiation process is the final aspect of media purchasing and will require the usage of a calendar and a budget. Coming prepared with these two things will allow you to be on your toes at all times when negotiating with media outlets about rates for the media that you are purchasing on the date and time you are purchasing it, an aspect that we will help you to finalize. Media purchasing is also as much about what you’re looking to do for your current slate of advertisements as what you are going to do in the future. If you find, after the first round of advertisements, that certain factors haven’t worked to your advantage, then simply change them around. No matter the issue, we will be there to aid you in identifying exactly what needs to be fixed with your plan.