Maybe, you’ve heard the term “Media Planner” bandied about and maybe you’ve ignored it, thinking it’s a fancy marketing term that means nothing to you. Maybe you don’t even think of it as marketing.
In any case, there are situations and projects that could definitely use a media planner. That’s what we will explore in this post.
A Media Planner is responsible for the selection and planning of marketing media activities. The Media Planner often works within your given budget, with your target market in mind, to select the advertising channels that your campaign should focus on i.e., the stations, networks and newspapers that would be a good fit and how often you should communicate via these media. A Media Planner also decides when the brand should communicate; fitting placements according to certain peak periods. and the best timing for consumers.
This individual should not be confused with a Media Buyer, who is responsible for liaising with the media houses and entities and buying time and space on the various formats. Media Planners also advise on budget allocations; they let you know how much money you should spend on each platform so you can meet your communication needs.
OK. Sounds great, you may be thinking. Why would I need one?
Here are the top 4 reasons you may need a Media Planner:
More Money, More Problems: You have a reasonably high marketing or advertising budget and you don’t understand the advertising territory that you are targeting or even how to reach the demographic target that you want to reach. For example, should you use TV or Radio for Males between the ages of 35 and 49? Should you use both?
You need to manage your boss/investor: Someone has invested in your brand or has a stake of ownership, so, this person or company may care about the efficiency of your marketing and media spend. You may need to furnish them with media planning metrics that you can only get from a media planner.
There’s too much in your media basket: You’re running several campaigns at once and you need someone to do the work of sorting through each campaign and creating various media plans. Many media plans running concurrently takes organisation and holistic planning. You need someone who has a complete view of your activities so they can see gaps or inefficiencies.
You’re already doing too much: Maybe you’re a Brand Manager or Marketing Manager. You have too much to do with your other marketing activities and you need someone competent to take care of the media planning activities.
I hear you asking: “Is this something my Marketing Manager (or any other kind of operating marketing personnel) can do?” Well, it depends. Media Planning generally comes with some degree of training, you have to learn how to calculate the metrics, what they mean and how to interpret this meaning for a client/supervisor.
Luckily, here at Match Sync, we work with our clients to meet them where they are. If training is important to you, we can work with your team to help them understand the ins and outs of media planning. If you just want someone to take care of your media planning for you, we can do that too.
Contact us to set up a coffee meeting to discuss!
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