Been in business for a while? Your digital marketing efforts have grown in complexity. It’s no longer about throwing money at a few things to see what sticks. Your opportunities for media placements are broader, which means it’s more difficult than ever trying to maximize your return on everything you do.
It’s time for a plan. With a media placement strategy, you can more accurately monitor each campaign you produce, allowing you to make more informed decisions about optimizing your overall marketing performance in the future.
What Is Media Placement?
Marketing is never a one-size-fits-all strategy. It isn’t siloed, existing only in-house. You have to connect with various media channels and place ads to effectively reach your target audience.
Once you place the ads, you have to optimize each display, ensuring they effectively reach their audiences. Through testing, you’ll consistently update and change your approach to maximize ROI.
Depending on your size and reach, media placement can include resources online and off. It can include TV, radio, and newspapers, as well as online platforms, social media, and other digital channels.
It’s about serving the right message at the right time on the right channel. It’s up to the media placement manager to determine where those “rights” are.
It Starts with a Media Plan
There isn’t a singular strategy that works for each industry or for every business within those industries. Instead, it’s about deciding what types of media will be most effective and bring in sales that meet your goals. There are three basic types of media:
- Paid—ad placement you pay for, including pay-per-click, display ads, and branded content
- Owned—media owned by your brand, such as blog posts and social media platforms
- Earned—publicity you gain from outlets other than your own
Each offers its own unique benefits to your overall strategy. Consider how each will play a part as you define your media plan.
Step 1: Define Your Media Goals
Every campaign has its own unique goal. Some media placements are designed to increase brand awareness, while others target increased revenue. This determines your messaging and how you will approach your audience. It also controls how long it will run and how much money you will spend on it.
Once your goals are set, media planners can perform research to determine the best approach for each campaign. This research will include clearly defining the target audience, coming up with the best approaches, and finding the best approach to achieve the end result. A flexible approach gives you a chance to adjust and try new things as you move along.
Step 2: Define Your Target Audience
It’s easy to assume your audience is the same across all platforms, but that simply isn’t true. The people who find you on TikTok are different from those who read email exclusively.
This is about creating positive customer experiences wherever you meet them. It’s about understanding who they are, what they want, and how best to give them what they want.
This is where analytics can help you understand different types of ads, look for creative ways to create your message, and decide how best to place those ads on channels your audience is using.
Step 3: Optimize Frequency
When is your audience most active? Does that change based on the platform?
The more you play with your media buys, the more you’ll learn about your customer base. Using this information will allow you to control your ad spend to only place ads when your audience will most likely see them. Media placement strategies allow you to do all this and more, giving you the ability to:
- Place ads to run consistently throughout the campaign.
- Alternate periods of advertising allow you to pause ads or channels based on performance. This can help you work seasonally, place ads during certain times of the week, or alternate ads based on the audience who is most likely to view them.
This is where media planners are important to keep your overall marketing strategies performing well. They keep your budget in mind, watch trends, and play with frequency to maximize your return.
Step 4: Analyze Performance
Media placement campaigns are never designed to “set it and forget it.” To increase performance, you’ll need to analyze all the data coming in with each ad you place. This is a hands-on approach; the more experience you have with following ad performance, the greater impact your adjustments will have on your overall business growth and success.
Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Advertising Budget?
No matter where you place your campaigns, media placements add trust and credibility to your overall sales process. If you aim your media placements at targeted, focused keywords, they can also have significant SEO value. This builds your credibility within the platform and provides organic ranking that will help your overall online strategy.
Yes, media placement is about building visibility and trust. In a crowded digital landscape, you can no longer ignore the impact of being online. Yet online fatigue is real: “Each day, the average person uses 10 different apps, makes up to 35,000 decisions, and scrolls the equivalent of 300 feet of social media content.”
Where you place your ads matters. How you build your campaigns reflects on your business. Your overall strategy will build your business fast or be hampered by the choices you make.
Media placements offer a boost to any marketing strategy. They can boost brand visibility, trust, and credibility. Depending on where you are in your business growth, it can provide valuable PR, help secure essential funding, or take you to another level within your industry. This can be a valuable way to achieve long-term success and sustainable growth.
Still, there’s a lot that goes into creating a media placement strategy that actually produces results. Unsure of where to start? Have questions about your approach? That’s where we excel. Let’s chat about your goals and desires. Let’s find a way to maximize your media placement strategies and help you get the results you’re looking for.
