What is Media Planning? Advantages, Basic Terminology, Process of Developing a Media Plan

What is Media Planning?

Media planning is the way of distinguishing and selecting media – primarily newspapers, magazines, websites, TV and radio stations and outdoor venues – to place the paid advertisements there. The person who has the onus for evaluating various media options and developing campaign strategies to advocate a particular product, service or brand is called a media planner. Media planners are often employed by advertising agencies.

The main objective of media planning is to achieve the company’s goals and optimise the costs mandatory for the brand’s promotion. Successful media planning means that a company draws new customers, increases market share, enhances brand awareness and builds a solid rapport through advertising. Media planning makes it possible to identify all the key points of promotional campaigns and achieve brand goals smoothly and without spending too much.

On the other hand, promoting brands without a clear strategy can mean wastage of money and unpredictable results, which in turn can also hamper brand image if advertisements are placed on inappropriate media or target audiences. Media planning avoids all of these obstacles and gives confidence in the company’s future campaign success.

The goal when creating a communication plan is to reach target customers, who are most likely to buy from the organisation, at the exact moment they decide to buy.

Media planning does not cease after the advertisement slot has been purchased but keeps continuing throughout the implementation and review process. Companies may use marketers to verify with advertisers that advertising is as advertised; for example, newspaper advertisements appear in the correct section of the newspaper and are not blurred or misprinted.

While the advertising campaign is underway, media planners should begin collecting and analysing data on brand awareness and new customers to help determine if the plan is working. A thorough analysis of the success or failure of a strategic media plan can help improve future media readers, leading to even better returns with the next media campaign.

In media planning, the advertisement ought to be taken to the target audience, some of the crucial questions that need to be answered are explained as follows:

• Who is the target audience: The selection of target consumer group enables the organisation to envision what sort of people it will need to cater to. Based upon the target consumer, an organisation will create advertising campaign and pitch the promotional program.
  
  
• Where are they located: It is also important for advertisers to find out about the geographical location of the target audience. The location of the audience will also enable advertiser to select the right media channel for information dissemination. Furthermore, it will give them the information about their spending capacity, what is the average income group of the consumers, the sort of products preferred by them, etc.
  
  
• When to deliver: An organisation also has to ascertain the timing of the advertisement. The timing of advertisement delivery will ensure the message reaches the target audience.
  
  
• How often to deliver: This pertains to the frequency about how much advertisement will be required. Moreover, an advertiser has to ascertain regarding the level of exposure to the target audience. The maximum exposure will ensure that the advertising campaign has been a success.
  
  
• Budgetary requirement: Budget is an important consideration that has to be accounted for while preparing for an advertisement campaign. Based on the budget allocation, the advertiser can work out the feasible promotional channels and even compute return on investment aspect.
  
  
• Execution: Once all the questions have been analysed, deciphered and decided upon the advertiser will proceed with the media planning.

Media making plans is primarily based totally on those factors, which lead media planners to construct context earlier than constructing an actionable strategy. Media planning also involves accumulating information about business, consumer demeanour, intended audience and customers to comprehend how useful the product or service will prove for the target audience.

Market research is prerequisite for media planning as it will help to develop content for the target audience to engage. The crux of media planning lies in delivering the advertising to the target consumers in a way that it is visibly effective and cost efficient.

Most media campaigns commence with consumer crafting and handing over an advertising and marketing that describes all the long-time period advertising and marketing targets and desires for the marketing campaign that they need to accomplish. The short may also offer greater perception into the emblem’s services or products that want media advertisements, capacity audience records and different tips and contextual records for the marketing campaign.

Marketing communications have two basic tasks:

1. Message creation
2. Message dissemination

Media planning facilitates message dissemination.

Media planning helps you to determine which media to use:

1. Mass media
2. Support media

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Advantages of Media Planning

Some of the advantages of media planning are as follows:

• Media planning enables to set the organisational goal. Advertising aimlessly can be futile and squandering of financial resources. Through media planning, advertisers seek to enhance brand awareness, woo more customers, retain clients or build positive goodwill. An explicit goal is required in media plan development as it directly enhances promotions’ success.
  
  
• Media planning enables marketers to enhance creativity and choose the appropriate time for promotion. The way advertisers broadcast advertising messages to potential customers, plays a significant role. To make an advertising campaign a success, advertisers ought to assure that their adverts are eye-catching and persuasive. Media planning also lets advertisers evaluate the time preferable for the target audience to pass on the promotional messages effectively.
  
  
• Media planning enables optimising the advertising budget. There are many relevant platforms which can be used for promotional purposes. Advertisers can determine them and focus on these media channels to optimise the rate of investment. Devoting high attention to ineffective mediums can lead to spending excessively on media buying.
  
  
• Another key benefit of media planning is that having seen the whole advertising strategy at once enables advertisers to make effective use of financial resources and develop creativity.
  
  
• Media planning precludes the squandering of advertising resources when money is used in the right direction and wastage of resources is prevented. A media plan enables an advert to gain approval from the client. Media planning will help the advertiser to reach out to the correct target audience. It enables deciding on the frequency of the advertisement and requirements of the media plan.

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Basic Terminology Related to Media Planning

The foremost purpose of media planning is to attain the company’s goals and optimise the budget set aside for product promotion. Successful media-making plans ensure that the company draws new customers, increases people’s awareness about the organisation and builds strong popularity with the aid of advertising; ultimately leading to an increase in its market share.

Planning is done keeping in mind all the important factors of promotional campaigns. Hence, it attains the organisation’s goals easily and without overspending.

Media Plan

Media plan refers to the process that advertisers go through prior to launching advertising campaigns to enhance the effectiveness of a product or service.

It requires the development of specific media objectives and the media strategies (plans of action) needed to attain these objectives. Once the decisions have been made and the objectives and strategies formulated, this information is organised into the media plan.

Media plan pertains to the goals, method, tactics, crucial resource allocation and media time and media blend to utilise for grabbing the attention of the target audience. The range of choices involved in beaming the promotional message to the possible customers and/or customers of the product or emblem is known as the media plan

It is a manner, of creating some choices which can be altered or deserted as the plan develops. It incorporates media plan briefings, expertise budgets, objectives and marketplace scenarios, audience evaluation, the use of research-pushed tools and special media websites and advertisements.

It determines how advertising time and area in diverse media may be used to gain the advertising goals of the company. The primary purpose of a media plan is to discover the aggregate of media which permits the advertiser to transmit the advert message in a straightforward way at the lowest cost.

Media Channel

Media channel can be inferred to as a technique via which a promotional message is communicated to the general public through the use of words, speech, pictures or video. The period consists of billboards, magazines, radio, television, direct mail and the Internet. The various forms of the traditional media channels are as follows:

• Newspaper advertising: Newspapers encompass numerous classified advertisements, like categorised advertisements and unique and free-status inserts. Classified advertisements are organised in keeping with the product or service.
  
  Display advertisements are promoted via illustrations, visible elements or photos. The inserts, like public notices and tender notices, are classified as special inserts. The newspaper passes on information related to the newly launched products, current or existing products and seasonal deals and offers. In India, newspapers are available in English, Hindi and regional languages.
  
  Newspapers create a strong impression on people’s minds, and they may be quite specific, clear, complex and lengthy. Technology has come a long way in recent generations, however, conventional newspaper advertising is still deemed the most reliable medium.
  
  
• Magazine advertising: Magazines or periodicals are an extraordinary medium advertising where an excessive amount of coloured images is desired. Magazine advertising is considered as an effective part of promotion mix, which is integration of advertisements, promotions and publicity. To build customer awareness of an organisation’s brand, product or service, magazine requires planning and promotion, long enough to get the attention of the intended audience. An organisation’s best ideas consists of:
  • Reach
  • Placement
  • Value for its budget
    
    
    
• Film advertising: Films are an important medium of advertising. Film advertising infers to a promotional and marketing activity to create awareness about the company’s product or service with an intent to attract the public. Film advertising in media planning enables advertiser to telecast the message to be alluring, attentive and keep the audience engaged as they cannot skip, swipe or mute the commercial on the big screen. Media planners can selectively reach to the target audience.
  
  
• Radio advertising: Radio commercials have won a different kind of popularity. Advertisements are broadcast from the transmitting stations of the radio channels, such as AIR FM and received by the receiving units or radio devices owned by people. Radio advertising in media planning provides the opportunity to pinpoint to the certain audience and pitch sales approach entirely for them.
  
  Radio advertising provides a clean slate in media planning efforts. Radio advertising is the medium on which people tend to spend considerable amount of time throughout the day and offers myriad opportunity for the company’s message to reach its audience. In media planning the more advertisements an organisation can air, the higher will be the chances of making a powerful impact.
  
  
• Broadcast media: Broadcast media or mass media gives valuable, useful and latest updated information, in fact, as per reports, an average person spends around 4 hours watching television each day. Consequently, this provides advertisers with many opportunities to get their message in front of potential customers.
  
  Direct advertising response can also be done through radio and television. The commercials beamed on radio and television are pivotal aspects of advertising. Advertising’s purpose is to persuade consumers of the benefits of the product. It is considered a very effective medium of advertising.

Media Vehicle

A media vehicle refers to a platform used for advertisement to attract the target audience.

It is a specific channel within a medium that can be used by the advertiser to transmit a message to the masses.

The first step is to select appropriate media vehicle, that is, a standard class of media, like radio, TV, the Internet, newspapers or magazines. This is observed with the aid of using a choice of the proper media automobile, including a particular radio station, TV channel, online internet site or print publication. The intention is to attain the target customer institution and obtain a reaction to the advertising messages from the institution.

Various media vehicles are as follows:

• Broadcast vehicle: This consists of specific TV channels and radio stations. Broadcast vehicle beams message through a communication satellite using a satellite dish to reach out to mass audience. They are more powerful than print media because the commercials encompass audio and video. They may be effective for low-involvement products, such as groceries and food products. Owing to brief advert intervals and dearth of high detail-sharing.
  
  
• Print vehicles: Newspapers are a feasible option for companies due to fairly low advert costs. All types of national and regional and local newspapers can be leveraged for advertising.
  
  
• Outdoor vehicles: Outdoor vehicles provide low-value advertising alternatives, such as buses, billboards, sub-ways, metro stations, bus shelters and benches.
  
  
• Digital vehicles: Digital vehicles offer providing very low-cost and effective advertising on websites and other digital platforms in the form of pop-up advertisements, display advertisements, search engine advertisements, social media advertisements, emails, etc.

Media Mix

A media mix entails all of the practical strategies that enable a product reach the target audience or people through deciding the right combination of all mediums and media vehicles, such as TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, buses, metros, websites, social media and email. For instance, Dream 11 gaming application makes use of media mix by advertising on metro hoardings and social media platforms.

The media today can further be divided into online and digital media. An advertiser uses a particular medium, which is extensively differentiated, such as broadcast media or print media, to reach the target market. An advertising medium is the means to communicate an advertising message. The advertiser wishes to pick out the proper message service or carriers, maintaining in mind the value, performance and specialities of the media.

A successful advertising and marketing campaign will entice the clients and generate sales. Whether you are attempting to inspire new clients to shop for a current product or launch a brand-new service, there are numerous alternatives to pick from. The most appropriate advertising medium for your brand will depend on your target audience and the most effective way to reach as many of them.

Digital media is an umbrella term that canvasses several sorts of marketing activities that an organisation recourse to.

Websites

“Website” refers to the centrepiece of all digital marketing activities, a powerful channel on its own and a medium to execute different Online or digital marketing campaigns. Website advertisements provide a unique opportunity to interact with the consumer. Website advertisements can make use of scripting to engage the prospective customer in the advertisement.

By sagaciously showcasing the pertinent information or enabling a customer to simulate in game play, a website can increase online footfall and sales. While surfing Online, when consumers click on the advertisement, they are automatically taken to another website link that contains thorough information or gives the online consumer a chance to make a purchase transaction.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engines are those websites that classify or index other websites on the basis of keywords, content and topics through search results. SEM is a digital marketing strategy for increasing the website’s visibility in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). SEM is also known as paid search or Pay Per Click (PPC). In SEM, advertising organisations only pay for impressions when there is online traffic, making it a constructive and effective way for an organisation to spend its financial resources. Moreover, each online visitor tends to gradually improve the rankings in organic search results.

Search engine marketing is a prudent way to establish a brand and is an economical way of generating leads and creating online sales. If a particular organisation lacks a search engine marketing strategy, it will fall behind in the digital age. SEM also provides marketing organisations with the scope to hone effective segmentation strategies to choose the target audience and pitch their product or service.

As consumers look for search queries with the intention of scouting information of a commercial nature, they are more likely to purchase a product or service in comparison to while surfing social media sites. Search engine advertising is a major source of revenue for search engines, such as Google and Yahoo! Advertisements are displayed in response to a query in a separate result list on Search Engine Results

Mobile Marketing

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) defines mobile marketing as a set of practices that enables organisations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through and with any mobile device or network.

Few direct marketing methods offer customers a way to respond instantly and personally via push notifications from their mobile apps. When a push message is sent to the user base and they elect to respond, the company obtains immediate feedback, which is a great thing. This method of implementing direct response advertising could open up and tap into mobile devices in a way that banner advertisements simply cannot.

Marketing is going mobile, and marketers are going to have to find more innovative ways to use tools like push notifications and location beacons to reach their customers wherever they might be. As locator mobile technology gets more sophisticated, push message notifications will have the power to go from a request from the website to a request from a nearby store, which could prove immensely useful to store owners and shoppers alike.

Mobile marketing involves direct marketing, advertising and sales promotion over wireless connections. Mobile marketing is ubiquitous, personalised and location-based. Hence, it is facilitating personalised delivery and engagement. In India, the number of smartphone users is also increasing rapidly.

Application-based Marketing

The application marketplaces like Google Play Store and iOS mobile application has been rapidly growing and these stores possess a huge repository of millions of applications. Such market-places made it easy for users to find an application of their interest. Brands are developing mobile applications and uploading them to online app stores.

Today, a plethora of applications or apps are available for beauty, health, lifestyle, games, news update, sports or entertainment on these stores. Applications (apps) are categorised under two heads, namely native and mobile web pages.

Native apps are those apps that can only be downloaded from app stores. They run independently without any dependency on the browser, whereas mobile web pages run through a mobile browser. Applications add additional value to websites. These are not a replacement or substitutes for a mobile website.

Company Applications

Whether you have simply started your commercial enterprise or you have been working for some years, you are constantly considering approaches to enhance and streamline your everyday processes.

Fortunately, in this digital age, there is more equipment than ever to assist business owners in everything from desktop-based accounting and CRM softwares to mobile-based business management apps. And, while there is nothing wrong with relying on a computer on your business equipment, many marketers can profit from extra-flexible small business applications like the Zepto app and Meesho App.

Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising

This advertising model enables marketers, or advertisers, to reach the users available on online platforms through paid advertisements where the marketer needs to pay if and only if the customer clicks on the advertisement.

In order for advertisements to appear along with the results on a search engine (commonly referred to as a “Search Engine Results Page,” or SERP), advertiser organisations cannot shell out more to assure that their advertisements gain more limelight than their competitors’ advertisements. In PPC, advertisements are automatically processed through Google and other key search engines that evaluate the relevance and validity of advertisements that appear on their SERPs.

Social Media

Social media advertising is a class of digital marketing that uses social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to serve paid advertisements to targeted audiences. Social media advertising is a fast and effective way to engage consumers and drive marketing campaigns.

By leveraging multiple data sources, advertisers can target audiences and deliver personalised content based on demographics and user behaviour. Advertisers may see more engagement and conversions when their audience is introduced to the brand on social media. Social media advertising is also cheap and potentially lucrative.

A lot of social media structures, which include Facebook and Instagram, provide advertisers with the ability to target very specific individuals. Advertisements can go viral if your target consumers like your content so much that they voluntarily start sharing it.

OTT Advertising

An “Over-The-Top” (i.e., OTT) media service refers to any online content provider that offers streaming media as a standalone product. The OTT term is commonly applied to video-on-demand platforms. It is also known as audio streaming, messaging services or internet-based voice calling solutions.

Streaming TV advertisements is another name of OTT advertisements. These are the advertisements delivered to viewers within this video content. OTT advertisements offer an opportunity for advertisers to reach new audiences at scale as more viewers lean into streaming video content in lieu of traditional cable and broadcast TV.

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Criteria Considered for Developing a Media Plan

Some of the key things to consider while developing a media plan are as follows:

• Objectives: A media plan elucidates the objective or what the media campaign is desired to attain. It formulates what should the audience get from the campaign or what action the organisation expects from them. A media plan may revolve around creating brand awareness or increasing sales.
  
  
• Goals: The goals of a media plan are sourced from the organisation’s business plan. The media plan elucidates certain media campaign goals and delineates how an advertiser intends to attain those goals. Advertisers are keen to see numbers, so the plan should show calculations of estimates and measurable outcomes.
  
  
• Target audience: The media plan must entail all parameters about the prospective clients’ relevance to the campaign. It can also demonstrate information that could influence decisions throughout the execution. It is important to be well aware of the target audience, their choice and the platform through which they are reachable.
  
  
• Types of media and media channels: This is an essential aspect of the media plan as the advertiser needs to work out the specific media mix that will be most effective for the audience and media campaign.

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Media Vehicles May Be Evaluated Keeping the Following Factors in Mind

The media vehicles may be evaluated keeping the following factors in mind:

Reach or Coverage

Reach infers to the percentage of target audience that is exposed to the organisation’s media at least once during a predefined span of time. An organisation must have at least 50 percent reach to stay buoyed, however higher reach is always desired, specifically at the commencement of a new advert campaign.

Reach is inferred to as the extent of diverse people/households exposed to a certain media schedule at least once during a certain time span. Reach depicts the size of the unduplicated audience. As far as media plan is concerned, it is an interrelated concept of both reach and frequency. Reach has the following traits: ‰‰Reach is computed as a percentage and also exhibits size of the audience.

Reach calculates the accumulation of target audience over a time period. ‰‰Reach eliminates double count of target audience that is exposed several times. To properly evaluate media reach, advertiser ought to define who the target audience is.

Reach is not merely percentage of total customers, but instead pertains to a percentage of a certain audience. For example, if an organisation intends to reach homeowners in a specific metropolis or within a certain geographical area. The organisation will have to first evaluate the extent of people it seeks to connect and then compute the reach of the advertisement campaign as a percentage of that.

Reach should be a top notch priority especially during a new campaign. If an organisation is promoting new product, renewed packaging, or distribution, then reach should be the one aspect it should lay emphasis on. Focusing on reach is also more effective with a wide demographic. Reach can be expressed in terms of percentage, which showcases the percentage of the population that is exposed to at least one demographic area.

Frequency

The frequency of advertising may be described as the number of instances for which an advert must be visible to an individual. It is taken into consideration that an advert is needed to be published or broadcasted at least 3 or 4 times to make a person acquainted with the brand. In a media plan it is arduous to evaluate the optimal frequency level.

However frequency is an important metric for media planners as it showcases the success of the advertisement, its reach and exhibits the number of times the potential audience views the advertisment. Frequency is inferred to as the minimum number of exposures to the target audience throughout a purchase cycle.

Frequency is deemed essential as it propels the average prospect in the target consumer group to fulfil the advertising aim. It is important to know that there are three key factors that influence effective frequency i.e., marketing, message and media. Frequency can be gauged in duration of hours, days, weeks or even months.

Gross Rating Point (GRP)

GRP is a tool that helps companies evaluate the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. It measures the range of advertisement campaign impressions and evaluates the scope of advertising delivery and exposure. Media buyers use this percentage to evaluate how much a media vehicle should they consider buying for their advertisement campigns.

Gross rating point measure the “weight” of advertisement delivery solely as a function of the presence of the advertisement message in the medium. In other words, no adjustments are made for the impact of different media and messages. Any media exposure is as valuable as any other media exposure. This standardisation means that GRP can be added across media to collectively measure the impact of a given media campaign.

Waste

The waste in advertising is a virus that negatively influences the brands’ advertisement campaigns and the organisations’ budgets. Waste in advertising tends to eat up the earnings that foments trouble on each end of the advertising spectrum. It takes place when people are replete with unwanted, redundant promotions. On the other side, budget-aware advertising professionals despair as their client’s or companies mounting bills go unjustified without a decent ROI.

Circulation

Circulation is the wide variety of paid subscribers that magazines and newspapers have. Circulation is the total number of newspapers/magazines dispensed on an average day. Advertisers want to be conscious whilst figuring out which vehicles to place their advertisements in, depending on their cost. Likewise, Broadcast media, such as TV and radio do now no longer use the term stream; instead, they degree their audiences in phrases of visitors and listeners.

Budget Consideration

Budget consideration refers to a rough estimate of a company’s professional expenses over a specific period. More essentially, it is the money a company is eager to put aside to fulfil its marketing aims. An advertising budget is the amount of money set aside for purposes of marketing and advertisements.

The expenditure of advertising must be measured against the potentially recognised revenues that will be generated. Demographic research and customer segmentation can develop profiles to help capitalise on the returns to advertising expenditure.

Budgeting While Advertising is Important Owing to the Following

• Achievement of goals and objectives: As a marketing organisation, budget consideration will assist the organisation to set specific monetary targets for the team. It will provide the organisation with a tracking mechanism to stay aligned with goals.
  
  
• Financial efficacy: Marketing and advertisement demand a great deal of funds to manage various campaigns and activities; dealing with such financial resources can be an arduous and tedious task for marketing and advertising managers. Budget consideration will assure that the monetary resources spent are worth it.
  
  
• Decision making: After the creation and allocation of the budget, the organisation must match it with the real expenditures, it is known as controlling. Controlling will assist the organisation in finding out the source of the anomaly. Finding the source of devi- ation will enable the people in charge to make better decisions in the future ahead.
  
  
• Cost Efficiency: Cost performance is the act of saving cash via way of means of converting a product or system to work in a higher way. This is done to enhance the organisation’s backside line via way of means of lowering procurement expenses and enhancing efficiencies throughout the board. Cost performance is an extremely famous period and approach utilised in agencies everywhere in the world.
  
  
• Cost per Thousand: In advertising, the fee of marketing is split in steps with thousand of humans. The overall fee of advertising is calculated via way of means of multiplying the fee in steps by a thousand with the overall wide variety of target audience it wants to reach out to.
  
  
  For example, if a newspaper has 1000 subscribers and it takes one hundred rupee for a commercial to attain a thou- sand subscribers, then the advertising organisation is needed to pay ` 10,000 to the newspaper to get its advertisement published in the newspaper. As a media planner, one would really like to pick out a media platform with less fee and great reachability.
  
  
• Pass-along Rate: Pass-along rate gauges the percentage of people who go through a file, message, forwarded emails and web links, computing the effect of word-of-mouth marketing. Pass-along rate is also known as “secondary audience or simply readership. The pass-along rate provides a more precise depiction of the number of people reading the print edition of the newspaper and potentially viewing the organisation’s advertisement.

Scheduling

Scheduling at once refers to the style of time wherein the commercial goes running. It allows solving up the time slots consistent with the advertiser so that the message to be added will attain the target audience in the right manner with the right timings. Media scheduling is one of the most crucial aspects of advertising programmer. Organisations should carefully scrutinise media timing for most marketplace feedback. Following are the types of scheduling.

Let’s discuss scheduling pattern:

• Continuity: This scheduling entails advertising the message frivolously at some point in a given period. Under continuous scheduling, a commercial advertisement is broadcasted across the year with an equal amount of weight every month.
  
  This strategy must be harnessed if a particular product category is sold across the year. No other extraneous factors are deemed such as seasons, events, etc. The pattern continuous scheduling may involve short gaps at regular intervals or long gaps, throughout the year.
  
  Continuous scheduling is more visible in service and packaged goods that demand perennial reinforcement on the public for top-of-mind recollection. Continuous scheduling can generally be afforded by large advertisers only who have the financial wherewithal. Due to its nature, it canvasses entire purchase cycle of the product.
  
  For instance, soap or hair shampoo’s advertisement is telecasted throughout the year. For example, if an organisation desires 48 television/radio spots, it will promote it four times in a month or once in a week or on each Monday.
  
  
• Flighting: Flighting can be referred to as an advertising method in which the seller transmits advertisements for a specific period and then published no advertisement at all for some time. Flighting scheduling is a substitute approach to continuity. Under flighting scheduling large scale advertising is done during specific months and no advertising is done in the remaining ones.
  
  Massive advertising during peak season leads to immediate brand awareness and this strategy also helps to curtail level of competition. Flighting scheduling period coincides with business period. Advertiser are able to achieve higher reach within a short span of time and run a unified campaign on various media platforms.
  
  Example: the advertisement for air conditioner is broadcast during summer months. When the time is not conducive, the organisation will not place any advertisement.
  
  
• Pulsing: This scheduling consists of non-stop marketing at a low-weight level, strengthened periodically through waves of heavier activity. In pulsing scheduling, advertisers showcase advertisement year-round, but during a particular time period there will be more frequency of advertisements than during other times of the year.
  
  In pulsing the benefit of continuity and flight scheduling can be availed as it is a combination of both-continuous and flighting scheduling strategy. In strategy, pulse infers high work in a certain period. Pulse may happen at the time of product/brand launch to increase brand awareness.
  
  For example, the company can also additionally promote it as soon as in the afternoon with a short commercial message. Pulsing is an amalgamation of both continuity and scheduling. This timing is favoured through financially sound companies.

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Process of Developing a Media Plan

Media planning is the technique with the aid of which entrepreneurs decide how, when and where an audience is given the chosen marketing and marketing message. Media planners examine the commercials and strategise how to send the messages out to the target audience.

A sound media plan guarantees that the content material can correctly carry out the objective for which it was created. Without a well-conceived media plan, the advertising and marketing crew is running without a goal.

The role of specific media is as follows:

• To convey brand message
• To develop brand relationship
• To foster brand relationship
• To strengthen brand relationship
• To forge a link of companies with customers

Selecting Media

The process of choosing the most efficient media for advertising campaign is known as media selection. The relative costs of media advertising and media settings are two of the numerous aspects that media planners take into account when evaluating the efficacy of media. Acquiring media space is another aspect of media planning.

The advantages and disadvantages of each of the main media options should be thoroughly understood by a media planner. There are always new advertising chances in the dynamic media sector. Digital and social media are altering how customers consume media and how they find out about products.

Subsequent factors that influence media selection are explained as follows:

• Nature of product: The product to be advertised is a decisive determinant of the advertising medium. Consumer goods have a general and broad appeal. Industrial products, on the other hand, can be better promoted in specialised trade, trade and trade journals. Products are needed by large consumer group demands promotion on mass media platforms such as print, radio, television and outdoor.
  
  Product characteristics vastly influence decisions regarding the choice of media to broadcast the advertising message. Most media advertisers are becoming increasingly lenient in their acceptance criteria for advertising. The general characteristics of the product can also greatly affect the type of media used. Products that require demonstration justify television and screen advertising. Industrial products prefer print media over broadcast media.
  
  Meanwhile, certain media advertisers do not accept advertising for certain types of products. Restrictions may also prohibit advertisers from using certain media for certain items. Products such as tobacco, wine and alcoholic beverages will not be advertised on radio, television or screen.
  
  
• Market potential: The purpose of all advertising vehicles is to reach potential consumers in an economical and effective manner. Different consumers vary in terms of age group, gender incomes, personality, educational level, attitude etc. This important task consists of identifying the potential market for the product in terms of customer numbers, geographic distribution, income patterns, age groups, preferences, likes and dislikes, etc.
  
  If the company’s message needs to reach out to high-income earners, magazine advertisement is ideal means. Newspapers and billboards can help a lot if advertiser wants to cover the immediate geographical area. Radio, TV and film advertisements are preferred means when targeting young people.
  
  
• Media availability: The issue of media availability is very important for advertisers. All the media advertiser needs may not be available at the right time. This is especially true for mediums such as radio and television, the same holds true for screen media.
  
  As such, the medium or unavailability of the medium poses new challenges for media planners and the people engaged in the advertising industry. It is basically more an external limitation than an internal limitation.
  
  
• Selling message: It is the advertising requirements that dictate the correct choice. Advertisers may be interested in targeting prospects with vibrant advertisements. In this case, magazines, movies, television and billboards serve their purpose. If topicality is more important, newspapers, radios and posters should be chosen. When it comes to demos, nothing beats television and screen media.
  
  Promotional advertising is welcome when a new product is about to be launched. If a company seeks to communicate with audience with attractive colours or pictures and verbal or non-verbal messages, it must recourse to television or film advertising. Meanwhile, if a company intends to communicate target audience only with verbal messages, radio advertising may be suited.
  
  
• Relative Cost: Relative cost is another aspect that influences media selection. The total budget available and advertisers ability to effectively advertise within that budget on a particular medium is important.
  
  
  Once the type of media is decided, a cost factor arises from the relative cost of each sort of media. For newspapers, this ratio is determined by centimetres per column, and for magazines, the cost per page per column is calculated.
  
  For radio and television for which data are available, comparisons can be made based on per minute advertising spend per 1000 listeners or viewers. However, it should be underscored that relative cost is only one factor to consider, and many other factors usually outweigh this relative cost issue. However, if multiple media look nearly identical based on all other criteria used, the advertiser may choose the one that is most favourable in terms of cost.

Market Analysis and Target Marketplace Identity

A target marketplace is an array of potential clients who need to be apprised about services or products. Each organisation may be divided into smaller segments. Segments are generally grouped based on age, location, profits and lifestyle. Identifying and informing the clients is an important part of the media and marketing plan.

Market analysis furnishes information on the industry, customers, competitors and other market variables. One can also define the association between supply and demand for a particular product or service. Based on this information, we can make more informed decisions about possible marketing strategies.

When we are undertaking market analysis, the following aspects should be considered:

• Who are the potential customers?
• What are customers’ shopping and buying habits?
• How large is the target market?
• How much are potential clients ready to pay?
• Who are the competitors?
• What are the competitors’ strengths and weaknesses?

Marketing analysis is a study of market dynamics. It is the attractive- ness of a particular market in a particular industry. A marketing analysis is a business plan that presents information about the market in which one operates. It deals with different factors but should not be confused with market analysis.

Marketing analysis is done so you can form a strategy on how to run your business. By considering certain factors, you will know how to run your business.

Simply put, not every product can be consumed by every customer and every product has a different set of consumers who want to buy it. To appeal to a specific segment of the market, companies sometimes modify products accordingly.

Creating a target market involves brainstorming a product idea, understanding the need for the product in the market, researching its target audience, etc. Targeted marketing will revolve around implementing marketing techniques for a specific market segment, which can be the key to attracting new customers, expanding business opportunities across geographies and opening new markets. Expand distribution network to expand reach prospective clients to maximise advertising and marketing mix.

Establishing Media Objectives

The main goal of media planning is to attain an audience with the proper message at the proper time and in the the proper place. Besides this, it additionally aims for:

• Efficiency: Media plans aim to minimise fees by attracting a maximum audience with effective messages through maximum channels.
  
  
• Effectiveness: It additionally aims to maximise efficacy ensuring that the audience is reached with proper frequency and at the proper time.
  
  
• Fulfilling long-term goals: Media making plans additionally aim at the larger goals of image-building brand consciousness and building long-term relationships with clients.

Developing and Implementing Media Strategies

Behind every successful media plan is a thoroughly planned media strategy. And before inching ahead with selecting the medium to opt or tactics to execute, a media manager/organisation must devise the campaign’s objectives, goals and target audiences.

Having a robust media strategy in place will enable to attain more measurable results and develop deeper insights (leading to a stron- ger performing media campaign overall). The following are the crucial aspects to get started:

• Selecting Relevant Media Channel(s): Media planners have alternatives with regard to the channel or channels they choose for sharing a piece of content material. Channels are structures, digital or traditional, that serve content material to users. Traditional channels are TV, radio and print advertisements.
  
  Digital channels are social media, websites, email and different online structures. It relies upon the product/service, message desires, audience and calendar of events. To set up the media marketing campaign timeline, a task plan is important to decide what belongings are important to assist the marketing campaign. When figuring out useful resource requirements, it could be beneficial to begin on the end.
  
  
• Coordinating the Channel Mix: Rarely will a media plan encom- pass only one channel. Most campaigns will contain minimum two channels — and probably many channels — to make sure that as many humans as possible are served the content material.
  
  But agencies want to ensure that the message is cohesive throughout all channels. This is especially true for social media channels. If a message applies a couple of audiences, it’s way more critical to distribute that message on channels that are frequently visited by the target audiences.
  
  
• Formulating Key Messaging Points: Delving deep into the essential messages an organisation seeks to pass on to the target audience will lead to the tactic selection and then have a colossal impact on its success once kick-started.
  
  For example, if an organisation is seeking to drive conversions among a specific target audience, the organisation may not want to reach the audience on a platform that is better suited for broad awareness campaigns.

As a media manager, one has to be sure that the message involves a direct call to action that is explicitly communicated throughout the media campaign—when viewers come across an advertisement, they should quickly know the direct action of encouragement, whether that be to download a report or buy product.

Evaluation and Follow Up

This step involves finding out the effectiveness of advertising. Follow- ing are the questions that need to be answered:

1. How successful were the strategies in accomplishing advertisement objective?

2. Was the media plan successful in achieving advertising objective?

Modification must be done as per the deviations.