Crafting a Stellar Media Plan
A solid media plan is your map through the marketing wilderness. A media plan will help you determine who you’re reaching, what success looks like, where to find your audience, and whether you’ve achieved your goals.
Your business needs this strategic plan to maximize your marketing dollars. We have five tips below to help you craft a media plan that will bring you the best return on your investment.
Understand your audience
Media development and buying is pointless if you don’t understand your target audience. Before you begin drafting that first video idea, there are a few things you need to know about who you want to reach. What is their age range? Gender? Income level? Where do they consume their media? You should have a few customer profiles in mind for developing products or services; use these as a base for developing your media plan.
Define your brand and voice
What is your company’s personality? Are you hoping to come across as approachable, professional or perhaps rugged? When your marketing team is on the same page about how you want to portray your brand, it can help drive decisions about where to post and what your goals are.
Establish clear goals
You can’t know whether your media plan is successful until you’ve clearly defined what success looks like. The key is “clearly defined” goals – you don’t just want to increase email subscribers for the sake of it. Use the SMART goal guide to create media goals that work for you: goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
Don’t put all your eggs in one media basket
Video is booming and digital is great, but there are plenty of other places for you to reach your audience than an Instagram ad. Consider how you can repurpose your content to create a campaign spanning multiple channels. Depending on your audience, maybe TV buys are a smart purchase. Perhaps your customers are more likely to pay attention to an email with video than a social ad.
Timing is everything
Now that you have killer content designed for your target audience, the right platform(s) and clear success metrics, you need to execute your media plan. Experiment with when your audience is most likely to be available and receptive to your message. Would they appreciate a morning email? Will they be scrolling social at the end of the day? When crafting your media plan, be strategic about when you’re posting content.
Let analytics be your guide
Not only will analytics tell you more about your customers, they’ll also be what let you know whether your media plan is successfully meeting your SMART goals. The platforms you use should have an analytics component, whether it’s Facebook’s internal analytics or an aggregator’s platform like Hootsuite. There are also media planning platforms where you can track tasks, frequency and spending for all media including traditional sources. The more you know about how your media is currently performing, the better you can strategize for the future.
Ready to develop a media plan that will wow your audience? Say hello!
About Us
Spin Creative is a video production company and creative agency helping marketers create winning video and creative strategies that engage, inspire and activate targeted audiences. Spin is headquartered in Seattle with offices in San Francisco and London, serving brands around the globe.
