Your Ultimate Guide to Media Planning

guide to media planning

The traditional means of advertisement have given way to trendy digital marketing in today’s businesses. For fruitful business development, meticulous planning and a detailed exercise must be done in the present day.

The entire gamut of activities, from content finalisation to reaping the benefits of investment in a digital marketing process, is termed media planning. This planning process is dynamic and widely varies with product or business types. 

What is media planning?

Media planning is discovering why, when, where and how a specific business content should be presented to its target audience. Media planning also deals with the choice of media platforms depending on their comparative capacities to bolster audience reach.

The essential components of media planning are as follows - 

  • Extent and the presentation mode of the content.
  • Frequency of content sharing, including date and time.
  • The latest trends in the market.
  • The budget of digital marketing.
  • Selection of the right media channel for advertisement.

Read on to learn more about media planning.

Types of Media Planning

Broadly there are three types of media planning. They are as follows - 

1. Paid media planning

The best method of media planning for a new product or a brand, it heps brands seek focused attention from a targeted audience. As the name suggests, it is a pay-per-click advertising method. 

2. media planning

Those business houses with an established digital platform for their group companies use this media planning. The management tends to publish a new product or service over their established platform. The group company wishes to leverage the organisation's image for new product advertisements. 

3. Earned media endorsements

Earned media publicity means the leverage a brand earns or achieves from external channels through its performance. These are essentially customer reviews, feedback etc., which the brand gathers outside its publishing house. Based on the comments received, companies take earned media feedback seriously and tend to improve its quality. 

Benefits of Media Planning

In today’s era of online shopping platforms, reviews on products are a common phenomenon. When a businessman wishes to survey or research a new product, huge amounts of data are readily available for a similar product.

The key benefits of media planning are - 

- Establish process

Media buying is complicated, and proper media planning and advertisement always get it on track. Thus, an advertisement's day, time, duration, platform and frequency must be benchmarked for a successful return. 

- Budget tracking

Media planning helps the business house track the budget and the return on investment at any point in time. This, on the other hand, helps to decide upon any changes to the existing plans.

- Audience segmentation and analysis

Resonance with a targeted audience is a key function achieved by media planning. The set process also takes a deeper dive into the analysis activity of the said function. 

- Optimization and testing

Over a period, a media planner always uses the available data to find out what has worked for the purpose intended, what has not and what might have worked if applied in a slightly modified manner. These adaptive changes in media planning ultimately help optimise the buying experience.

- Return on investment

Return on investment (ROI) is the goal for all commercial operations. In this case, media planning helps support this goal. 

Objectives of Media Planning

Objectives of media planning are always in line with the organisation's business goals. The ultimate purpose is to generate a handsome return from an optimised investment through long-term sustainable growth. The objectives of media planning are as follows - 

  • Improving collaboration between cross-functional teams to develop and share media content.
  • All broadcasting processes and media publications should be improved and streamlined.
  • The day, date, time and frequency of media publication must be fine-tuned to ensure the content reaches its targeted audience smoothly.
  • The publication's content must be fine-tuned occasionally to suit the targeted audience's latest trends and thought processes.
  • Enough time should be administered to a media campaign to reach the intended audience with its desired impact. 

Conclusion 

Media planning is an important function in digital marketing today. Advertisers choose their preferred platforms based on the nature of the products they wish to sell or, more accurately, based on the audience for whom the product is designed. Thus the role of a media planner is an extremely lucrative career option in today’s world.   

The Post Graduate Program in Digital Marketing at Imarticus can guide your dream in the field. Avail the advantage of project-based learning, hands-on training in marketing tools and industry-recognised certifications. Visit the official website for further details.        

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