Media planning is an important part of any process of promoting a product on the market, whether it is a new and unknown product or a popular brand.
The essence of advertising campaign planning
The basics of media planning imply a competent approach to creating, placing and promoting an advertising message through classic media and other
distribution channels. In other words, this is a set of measures that allows you to distribute the advertising budget in such a way as to achieve maximum benefits in accordance with the main goals underlying the advertising campaign. In addition, media planning is one of the stages of the process of organizing the activities of any company, but at the same time it is not only the process of choosing the most optimal means of advertising, but also the multifaceted activity of psychological and economic support for all ongoing campaigns. Only following these rules can you count on maximum efficiency.
The very concept of media planning is to compile a media plan that takes into account the placement of advertising in the media in order to achieve its maximum effectiveness.
Stages of Media Planning
Before you start planning an advertising campaign, you need to decide on the main and secondary goals. Traditionally, the main thing is to promote a service or product to the market, stimulate sales growth, increase recognition or consumer loyalty to a product or brand, and create an image of a product, company or person. Goals are expressed in specific indicators (numerical or percentage), which can be characterized by the level of sales, loyalty or awareness of the target audience, as well as response from potential customers. After formulating the tasks, you can start writing the media plan itself.
Drawing up a media plan
The media plan consists of the following items:
- A full description of the selected type of advertising.
As a rule, this item is the most extensive. Here, the approach to solving the advertising problem (whether the advertisement will be rational or emotional), the nature of the planning of the advertising campaign (media, immediate, complex), the submission of the advertising message (soft or hard form), the degree of use of the image of the advertising product (direct, indirect, hidden) are chosen etc.
All these parameters are determined by the life cycle of the product and the awareness of the main part of the target audience about the product or service, the desired end result and financial capabilities.
Also, this paragraph describes the type of advertising based on which distribution channel will be used to implement the plan. This can be printed matter, video or audio clips, exhibition or PR-action.
In the same paragraph, all particular characteristics are indicated, including the parameters of the target audience, the nature of the advertising object, its geographical distribution and the intensity of the impact on the consumer.
- Definition of the channel or distribution channels.
Classic media, online advertising, BTL, etc.
- Definition of terms of placement.
In addition to the total duration of all events, this item includes the scheduling of broadcasting a commercial on television or radio, the date of publication of the message in print, the dates of participation in exhibitions and other time characteristics of the campaign.
- Determining the cost of an advertising campaign.
In this part of the media plan, all the financial costs of creating, posting and promoting a message are signed.
- Definition of payment methods.
You can pay for advertising space in bulk, one-time, by barter, on the basis of sponsorship, etc.
- Efficiency.
The effectiveness of an advertising campaign is determined by the indicator of achievement of the set goals.
What tasks does media planning solve?
The tasks of media planning include the following:
- analytical activity (determination of all parameters of the target audience, market situation, competitors, marketing opportunities, etc.);
- wording of the goals of the advertising campaign;
- planning stages and setting the time frame for their implementation;
- determination of the distribution channels of the advertising message;
- determination of the desired effectiveness based on the main indicators of media planning;
- budget allocation.
Media Planning Options
Media planning in advertising can be theoretical and practical. The complex of the theoretical part includes the calculation of advertising campaign performance indicators , the collection of necessary data and the processing of all secondary parameters based on modern statistical methods.
The practical part involves direct work with client companies, the implementation and support of all planned activities as part of an advertising campaign. A high-quality approach to practical media planning helps to save the budget, while achieving all the goals. Thanks to these studies, advertising messages are divided into categories according to the duration of campaigns, product groups, time of display, which in the future provides the most competent approach to creating the media plan itself.
Key Media Planning Indicators
- Rating or TVR value is the percentage of the entire target audience that saw a unit of a media event at a certain moment, to one that could see it.
- Reach & Cover (coverage and coverage) - an indicator of the total number of people who were able to see or hear an advertising message in one campaign.
- TRP - total rating calculated for this target category.
- OTS - an indicator of the potential number of times that this message could be seen.
- GRP - the sum of the ratings of all the outputs of the advertising message in all media during one advertising campaign.
- Frequency (purity of contacts) - the number of advertising messages that each person from the intended target audience will contact.
- Index T / U (compliance index) - the percentage of the audience of the publication from the target group to the general audience of the publication.
- CPP - the cost of a rating item, the cost of achieving it.
- CPT - an indicator of the cost of a thousand contacts.
A new trend in media planning
One of the newer elements of media planning is online advertising. In this context, the Internet can be considered as one of the platforms for placing an advertising message. With its popularization and extensive penetration into our daily lives, it has become almost one of the key points included in media planning. Examples of the use of this distribution channel are diverse. It can be both contextual advertising, and placement of banners, pop-up and much more. Media planning is a complex of promotional activities, a sensible approach to which is a fundamental component of successful product promotion.
What does media planning look like in action?
Media planning is an important part of any advertising activity. And a well-composed media plan is the key to success in achieving your goals. What does media planning look like in action? As an example, let's take the planning of placing an advertising message about an upcoming event on the radio. We need to educate the public about the opening of the supermarket. Before we can decide which radio station will become our site for placement, we need to analyze its target audience and understand how it meets our criteria.
As a rule, the opening of a supermarket is more interested in family people of any age. More such advertising is designed for a female audience. So, based on this, we are interested in radio stations that are focused on women. This audience will be divided into two segments: housewives and working ladies. Both listen to the radio during the day, while doing work in the office or around the house, so spending money on more expensive prime time does not make sense. Here, greater efficiency can be achieved due to the repetition rate. To save money, you can also opt out of advertising on weekends or minimize the number of repetitions.
Traditionally, it’s best to start advertising on the radio at least two weeks before the official event. In the media plan, this item is indicated without fail, because it is the number of days multiplied by the number of repetitions during one of them that determines the amount of basic expenses. In the cost point, you must also specify the costs of creating the commercial itself.
To optimize the costs of an advertising campaign, you can also offer radio stations full or partial barter. For example, you can offer them broadcast in your supermarket for a certain period of time. In turn, they may agree to lower the cost of a single spot (broadcast) for your audio clip or to place your ad for free.
After an advertising campaign , its effectiveness is determined in accordance with the goals set and the level of their achievement.