The world of marketing is vast and ever-changing, but some things remain the same. Pay per click ads are here to stay for a while. Of course, this is just one aspect of media buying so you don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket with it. When it comes to getting your business advertised, the more places you can have it, the better!
What Is Media Buying?
In the most simple terms, media buying is taking a commercial, or newspaper ad, or other sales message and getting it viewed by the intended audience. So it may sound some complex system but it’s actually a very simple concept – paying to get your business advertised in various places. These are just a select few of the goals that media buying aims to fulfill:
- Finding the right media space
- Targeting the relevant audience
- Increasing the conversion rate
- Increasing brand awareness
- Creating relevant ads
In the end, media buying aims to fulfill all these goals by spending the minimum amount of money. That is the key here is getting the MOST that you can out of your advertising dollars. Again, nobody wants to be dumping money into a strategy that isn’t giving them optimal results. That’s why many people turn to pay per click ads.You can set up all of your own parameters to ensure your advertising campaign goes off just how you want it to.
Media Buying Stages
Depending on who you ask and where you look, you may hear different things about the exact steps you need to follow when doing media buying. We have, through our own experience, found it best to divide it all into three steps. The three stages of media buying you will need to go through are as follows:
Pre-Launching
In this stage, you need to weigh the pros and cons of all the different platforms and then make the appropriate choice for YOUR business. Do keep in mind that just because a certain process works for one company, doesn’t mean it is 100% going to work for you. You need to ensure that the media you choose aligns with your business goals. Here is what you need to do at this stage:
- Identify your target audience
- Decide how to reach your target audience
- Research your competition
- Design a media buying strategy
- Choose the relevant media platforms and negotiate the price
- Allocate a budget to your campaign and plan it
Once all of this is done, you will be ready to launch your campaign. It’s critical that you always put yourself in the shoes of the your consumers when thinking about marketing.
Campaign Launch
During this stage, by far the most important things that you can do are to ensure effective delivery and monitor the campaign’s performance throughout. It is essential to understand what works and what doesn’t based on the insights you gather after monitoring. It will help you make better decisions. Keep an eye on those keywords and compare the results they have, all of the little things really matter here! Also make any note of change in your sales whether that be different demographics making up more sales, anything else.
Post-Campaign Review
Reviewing your performance is the most important thing to do. It helps you think about the pros and cons of the campaign you just launched. You can analyze customer engagement, performance, and ROI so you can know how to establish an even better campaign next time. You will get no better information than your own data, it’s such a powerful tool that all too any businesses aren’t even using.
Collect data, review statistics, and conjure up detailed reports to understand the campaign you launched. Don’t be afraid to use this data, and any of your past successes or failures are just great data points you need to use. Look back on your failures, figure out WHY they failed not just the fact that they did fail.
Edge Digital
On a budget and need help with your marketing strategy? Edge Digital can help. We’ve got years of expertise doing digital marketing, we feel confident that we can help anyone grow their business online. Call (919)726-4366 for more information today.
Kim works with brands since 2011 to develop and manage their digital and social media strategies; meet company objectives, such as increasing leads, engagement, and website traffic, utilizing best practices, the latest tools and strategies; and develop quality content. She is a problem-solver who loves a challenge when it comes to increasing sales.