A few considerations when media planning…

Advertising, these days, is far more than the odd display advert taken to increase brand awareness. There are so many opportunities available to promote your business and increase your brand awareness that it is worth considering if your current media plan meets your needs or whether it might be worth amending your spend to take advantage of different activities that may change the perception of your business in the market place.

To an extent, it very much depends on your target market and how you wish for them to perceive you. There are many circumstances, particularly within the healthcare sector for instance, where over branding with display advertising would be frowned upon by the target audience. It may be that your target market would take more notice of a fresh approach to your advertising which in turn would refresh their view of your business and its products. How does your advertising engage you with your target audience? In the constant quest to find these different ways of reaching target audiences, you may come across the concept of advertorials, sponsored features and other audience engagement tactics such as webinars and surveys.

I recommend, when choosing where to advertise, that you do your homework in terms of the circulation and its reach. Is the publisher able to give you an accurate break down of circulation by job title and, if the entire circulation is not appropriate for you, is there the opportunity to place a loose insert that would go to only those within the circulation that are?  Consider if it’s a free publication sent to an existing mailing list, is it a controlled circulation title and, is it business to business or business to consumer. When looking at trade publications and journals in particular, find out if they are affiliated to any societies or trade bodies. Members of such societies and trade bodies usually receive these publications as a part of their membership and as a result of this are often long standing, well respected publications.

When putting your advertisements together, try to include a call to action so that you can gauge the effectiveness of your campaign. Another benefit of doing this is you will be able to collect data from these responses, in terms of gaining details of individuals that have a genuine interest in your product or service – these have the potential to convert to sales leads!

In terms of booking your advertising, it’s important to have a firm appreciation of your budget, so that you don’t get lured into overspending. If you’re not confident when it comes to such matters and would appreciate a bit of guidance, it is worth having a conversation with a marketing professional who would be able to manage this process on your behalf. As experienced hands, we can often work with a publisher to gain better advertising discounts and gaining more value when placing annual package bookings.

If you’d like to talk about media planning further then please just give me a call on 01428 722990 or email me at charlotte@mzuridesign.co.uk