Media planning – Media planning involves finding the most appropriate media. Media planning involves some areas of expertise that the advertising agencies use to determine what the best method of media is to achieve the promotional campaign objectives.
Criteria for media selection – For an online advertising agency, there are seven factors that have to be considered when selecting appropriate media:
- Budget – Costs vs. Coverage – This is where a balance is made between what a business can afford and the coverage that is possible. This is a key consideration when deciding upon the selection of media.
- Promotional Objectives – Different media will be used for different types of promotional campaigns, and this will depends on the objectives. The media selected must ensure consistency with the overall objectives for the campaign.
- Target Audience – This is a critical consideration to the media selection.
- Focus of Appeal – Advertising agencies must decide how best to appeal to their target audience.
- Timing – Timing is important to make sure the right level of awareness, understanding and desire have been generated by the time the product is actually available. Timing also needs to be taken into account if the product has an element of seasonality.
- Circulation – Research has to be carried out in order to find out how many people read the particular publication.
- Readership – This refers to the number of people that have read one issue of the publication.
Types of media
- TV -Television is a combination of sound and moving images. It is one of the most expensive forms of advertising, but on the other hand it reaches a very wide audience. Advertisers buy slots from TV stations to broadcast commercials. It is expensive to advertise during prime-time as oppose to advertising during the morning as less people watch TV in the morning. Some TV stations also sell advertisers product placements. For example, EE’s product can appear in a TV show.
- Radio – An advantage of radio is that people listen to radio stations whilst doing other things, in some cases radios are on for the whole day. When advertising on the radio, it is vital to choose the right radio station as different radio stations target different target markets e.g. Choice FM appeals to a young audience who may be interested in what EE has to offer.
- Billboards/Outdoor Ads – The main outdoor ads are posters, billboards and electronic displays. Electronic displays change very quickly, they are usually eye-catching for the public to notice them but these ads must be short and simple because viewers see them only for a few seconds.
- Role of the Internet – Advertising on the internet is becoming more and more important nowadays. This is due to the fact that the majority of people spend time on the internet than anything else. The biggest advantage of internet advertising is that the internet is available around the world at all times. Advertising on the internet range from pop-ups to banners. Businesses that spend a lot of money on advertising often create their own website.
The internet also allows businesses to deal with their customers directly.
- Social Networks -One of the major benefits of advertising on a social networking site, e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc., is that advertisers can take advantage of the users’ demographic information and target their ads appropriately.
- Magazine -Better printing quality and colour ads are among the advantages of magazines. There are special magazines which focus on one specific topic, e.g. EE’s products may feature in a mobile phone magazine.
