How to Buy Advertising Like an Agency

If you pay attention to advertising, the first thing you will notice is that it is all around you. From billboards and banners to television commercials and radio spots, in glossy print publications and throughout newspaper, it can seem like ads are a dime a dozen. Yet, that could not be further from the truth. Most all are perfectly planned, strategic and costly endeavors that companies invest thousands (even millions) of dollars in to build brand awareness and stand out from the competition.

So, when your company is ready to really invest in advertising, the question begs to be answered – “Where do you start and how can you get the most for your investment?”

Many small businesses make the first mistake by jumping right into advertising when prompted by a nice ad rep, or a seemingly inexpensive offer, but find less than stellar results from these “hit ‘em once” efforts. If you are planning to spend any money on promoting your company or brand through promotional marketing or advertising, it is important to ensure ROI for that investment, and actually, well….a plan.

Advertising agencies understand the importance of creating solid marketing plans that maximize their clients’ investment in marketing. It’s why many large corporations hire an agency to manage their advertising campaigns and marketing plans. They are responsible for initiating, managing, and implementing paid marketing communications, and developing branding. Often times they are brought in to collaborate with a business to bring an outside perspective and when the in-house team doesn't have the tools and resources to perform in-depth strategic research, targeting and reporting.

Not every business has the budget for an advertising agency. But every business can learn from their approach and use their strategies at scale to master their approach to marketing.

JD Pelegrino is a media planner in the integrated planning division of Kelly Scott Madison, who oversees both national brands with a large advertising imprint like KIND Bars and small businesses with a more modest budget like Hardage-Giddens Funeral homes.

He shared seven key elements needed to create a successful advertising plan – beyond the first impression – from the perspective of a media planner.

What exactly is a media planner anyway?
When you work with an advertising agency, Media Planners (or media buyers) are responsible for putting ads in the right place at the right time, reaching the desired audience for the least amount of money. A certified media planner is required to hold a bachelor's degree in advertising, marketing or communications, and has proven success in media buying, planning, and research. The job requires meticulous focus on media trends, communication and negotiation, and the ability to track metrics back to the client to show success and ROI.

Prepare a Plan
JD says, “When we first engage with a client at Kelly Scott Madison, we work to understand their overall marketing and business goals, as well as get a sense of their perceived target audience. We then develop our advertising strategy based on their budget and timing of any key business benchmarks and hone in on location before messaging and design.”

You can do this by first analyzing your business goals. Look at where your business is at now and where it wants to be. Establish an Ideal Customer Profile and then start to collect data on how to reach that target audience in the desired market.

Take your Time
This doesn’t mean go slow, it means take time into account. In advertising, timing takes precedence in our strategic planning phase, particularly if there is a holiday that is better for sales, or there is a certain time of year when sales need to be supported. In addition, prepping for a new product launch or thinking about staying top of mind throughout the year – even with seasonal businesses, are items to talk through.

Use Your Tools
“We have tools that enable us to take a 30,000 degree view of each target market - by city, state, keyword, DMA. Once we identify the publications that tap into our consumer audience in those locations, we comb through each media kit to review the verified circulation or reach, who is consuming that media, and pay special attention how each publication or outlet connects with their audience.”

If you need to advertise locally, you can collect this data without any special agency tools. Just make sure you collect all the data. That means reviewing all the advertising options, analyzing their audience reach and engagement before you make any single advertising decision. Don’t buy advertising one meeting at a time. Meet with all the available options, gather the data and review against your ideal customer profile and reach needs.

Assess Value
“We perceive value in how each outlet or publication will work with us and what results they will be able to return to us. Once we compare the options across each market, we decide which ones can deliver the best ROI, work through negotiating advertising rates, and building out what the partnership can look like.

It isn’t always about relationships, we feel that circulation is key because some publications or outlets may only capture a segment of the DMA, while others saturate the entire target area. We then provide value to our clients following this research phase by providing the information so they can make an informed decision in a concise way.”

You can ensure this too by focusing on circulation and understanding what verified circulation means to your marketing goals.

Maximize the Budget
“It is true that a smaller media investment will winnow down the amount of publications and outlets. Often we really focus on one or two publications when this is the case, and recommend one or two more (perhaps for the future) to provide the best options. We’ve learned creative ways to stretch smaller budgets and feel it is more important to stay relevant throughout the year, than have one full page ad with nothing to back it up. Even so, a quarter page is as small as we like to go as being overlooked, or getting lost in the fray is a no-win situation.”

This is the perfect real world scenario of the famous saying “don’t put all your eggs into one basket.” If you have a small budget, do your best to spread it across more than one media so that you have more opportunity to capture the attention of the most amount of varying people. Doing this will protect you if your ad doesn’t resonate with the audience of one particular media. If you had put all your marketing dollars into it, they’d all be wasted.

Calculate ROI
“Many clients ask: how can you determine if it is working? We will pull numbers on what was our monthly spend in print (with all channels) and compare to all other months of the year. Then, we calculate our impressions with the most up to date numbers. This is where we rely on our publications to have up to date media impression reported numbers available.

I cannot emphasize on how important this is. If we can’t find all the key details, it makes it all the more difficult to share what is working. If we see conflicting information within the market, we circle back to make sure everything is correct. We can hone in on what we are delivering. We look at sales data and all of our impressions together at the end of each reporting period to see if we want to shift the strategy along the way throughout the year.”

You can do this too by relying on the same transparent reach data from the media channels you’ve decided to advertise with.

All this to say, when you make a plan, the outcomes will end in your favor. When it comes to making a strategic plan for business growth, approach your advertising buys like you’re an advertising agency and you’ll set yourself up for success.