What is a media plan?
A media plan is a document that contains complete structured information about upcoming marketing activities. Most often, it is in the form of a table, the lines of which list the advertising channels involved in the promotion process. For each channel, a number of planned indicators are described, including cost, coverage, conversion, ROI and a number of others, depending on the depth of development and promotion goals.
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Media planning is an event aimed at a long-term result. The difference between a well-thought-out media planning strategy and spontaneous advertising campaigns is that in this case we are talking about complex work with several advertising channels at once. The optimal time frame for such work can be six months or even a year.
You can create a media plan based on a predictive report that builds forecasts for calls albania phone number resource applications, and leads. This will help you more accurately understand the required prospective volumes of content and the scale of campaigns.
How is it different from a content plan?
These two concepts are closely related: both documents define the topics of content that the company will share with the target audience.
The main difference lies in the purpose of these documents: the content plan contains a schedule of publications on the website, in messengers, social networks and other platforms, while the media plan focuses on advertising campaigns.
The content plan specifies the headings and topics of articles and posts, and adds illustrations and videos. But it does not specify the platforms for brand promotion, the planned budget, or forecasts for the results of advertising campaigns. All of these are components of the media plan.
Why do you need a media plan?
Media planning helps to understand how the company's value proposition will reach the target audience of the product. To do this, a full range of advertising channels is selected that somehow cover potential customers. Budgets, deadlines are determined and results are predicted.
It has been proven that a comprehensive promotion strategy through a set of channels yields better results than one-time advertising activity on a limited number of platforms. This is exactly why it is necessary to resort to media planning. You must have a clear plan, a guide to action: which advertising channels to use, in what period, what budget to allocate, what part of the target audience each of them will help to cover and how many sales they will bring.
A media plan helps you manage your advertising budget effectively. Instead of making decisions based on the situation, studying each channel on the fly and creating a concept, you know in advance how your advertising message will reach your target audience and what resources are needed for this.
What does it consist of?
The structure of a media plan may vary depending on the timing and goals of the advertising campaign, the characteristics of the enterprise and product, the size of the marketing budget, and other factors. However, the document usually includes information on the timing of marketing activities, channels and formats, budget, projected KPIs, and advertising revenue.
Dates of the RK
The main thing in media planning is the results of marketing activities, so the document does not need to be tied to the launch and end dates of campaigns, but simply write out a media plan for the month.
However, many companies still indicate the timing of the advertising campaign in the table: this helps to plan business promotion activities, ensures the timeliness of the advertising launch and allows you to sum up the results immediately after the end of the advertising campaign.
Placement channels and formats
Within one advertising campaign, different types of advertising are often used. To evaluate the effectiveness of each of them, lines with data on all types and channels of placement are added to the media plan.
A detailed table will be useful when preparing materials for promotion: you understand in advance what type of advertising is planned, when and where the content will be posted, who you need to agree with and what to control. Also, a breakdown by formats and channels makes it easier to analyze advertising campaigns - you can immediately see which areas brought the best results.
The main promotion channels include contextual and targeted advertising, SMM, SEO, media publications, email newsletters, influence marketing and outdoor advertising.
Budget
To evaluate the effectiveness of marketing activities, it is important to understand how much money was invested in them. Therefore, budget data is added to the media plan at the stage of preparing the advertising campaign.
Next to each advertising campaign, indicate the amount required to carry it out. If the event is held in several stages, and each of them is paid for separately, all costs are summed up. If unforeseen expenses arise, for example, if advertising does not work and needs to be replaced, the budget is redistributed. It is important to promptly enter information about all adjustments into the media plan so that it remains relevant and reliable.
Predicted effect (KPI)
Basic performance indicators of advertising campaigns are determined at the stage of preparing a media plan. They will show whether investments in marketing have paid off and whether the selected plan needs to be adjusted. KPIs are used to report to management or the client on the work performed.
When selecting indicators, the specifics of the business and product, channels and objectives of the advertising campaign are taken into account. KPIs for launching a new product line in an online store will differ from the performance indicators of a promotion aimed at attracting a new audience to the same store.
Projected profit
To predict how much a business can earn from an advertising campaign, the following parameters are taken into account:
Average cost per lead - it is calculated based on data from past advertising campaigns or using information from competitors.
Lead to client conversion - average figures for previous periods.
Average check size - for the last month or quarter.
The size of the advertising budget - take the entire amount or split it by channels.
Having collected all these indicators, a forecast is made:
The expected number of leads is calculated as the quotient of the budget amount divided by the cost of one lead.
The number of leads is multiplied by the conversion rate of a lead into a client - this gives the possible number of sales.
The resulting amount is multiplied by the average check to find out the approximate gross profit.
The projected advertising revenue is determined by subtracting the advertising investment from the gross profit.
Media plan formats
There is no single template for this document. It is usually prepared in Excel or Google Sheets. You can use special software for developing media plans, such as Mediator , Media Calculator or Media Planner . To work with them, you need basic knowledge in marketing - without it, it will be difficult to understand the nuances of the programs.
As a rule, experienced marketers have several ready-made template options that they adjust to a specific advertising campaign. Or they create a document from scratch.
It is important to maintain a balance between a table that is too detailed, filling it out will require a lot of time and effort, and a superficial report that does not provide a complete picture of the progress and results of the campaign.
