Media Buying:
Introduction:
Media buying in general is the actual contracting of your advertising with the media outlet that you want your ads to be seen on. This is when your cash hits the road.
You are negotiating the fine details of buying and paying for the advertising. You arrange the timing and placement of your advertising and decide on how long your ads will run and in what medium you will use.
You can hire someone to buy for you or you can buy your own advertising
You have the choice to do your own buying or to hire this process out. Hiring out sounds good but it can be very expensive.
Your budget and time will dictate what you do, but in my opinion you should start small and do this yourself until you are bigger and can delegate it. Even then, I suggest keeping a close eye on this expense as it adds up fast and can eat profits quickly if not monitored. Testing your ads is important, find a winning ad or two and then use them as the “Ad to beat” or “Control Ad” as they call it in advertising.
You need to have experience in doing this and you can do it on just about any budget. This website is devoted to helping the small business person learn all about what they can do and how to do it.
You can learn as much as you want about your top 3 or 4 advertising options. Learn how to build the ad and test the ads you write. Start small and record the results. Learn from your successes and your failures.
Record the cost, the number of responses and the number of sales. Then deduct the costs to see if you have a profit. There are many variables that you can test with your ads. Track everything you can. This is how you learn and master the art of media buying.
Review the results of each advertising campaign you do. Study the good and bad decisions and note if it is profitable or if you had a loss. Write down how you could improve your next ad campaign.
Once you are ready to roll out a larger program, you then need to start your media buying.
Buying is not a science but can be an art
The art or science is not in the negotiation of the price as much as it is finding the right medium to use or combination of ads to use. This knowledge will come with experience and winning and losing ads.
Testing is critical to any advertising program. You only want to roll out a campaign and start media buying once you have a proven winner. Never do this without having a proven ad winner.
Each media buy should be recorded and all results need to be recorded. Evaluate your ROI (return on investment). Evaluating the results of your campaign is important. You must make a profit on this type of program. Every campaign you do should produce a good R.O.I
Test everything in your ad, the Heading, the body, the colors, the close and of course the price. Remember to test each part separately. Change only one part at a time. If you change multiple parts you will not know which part created the better response.
Constantly testing your advertising is the key
I cannot stress this enough. When you advertise, you need to do a budget and then stick to a program. Break down your ads into test groups. Change one component of your ad and do another test.
Do as many tests as your initial budget will allow. Then evaluate the results. The ad that pulls the best results becomes your “Control” ad. This is the ad that you will now test against in the future.
You can use your control ad for the media buying campaign. It is tested and has proven its R.O.I
Keep testing and rolling a good portion of your profits back into your advertising budget. Find a winner and then you can roll that winner out in more media buys in an around your market area.
Do not stick with this winner for ever. Keep testing new ads and new media against this Control Ad. Convert the control ad into different formats and test those. See if you can make it into a video or audio recording and try to market that.
Test in different market areas, even different cities or countries. If you are a local business, try a new neighborhood. Just keep testing. Rolling a portion of your profits into more ads will lead to some large pay days.
Cover all your costs and keep rolling out with more advertising to build a larger customer base. The more media you buy the larger your discounts will be in the future. In fact, you will often see special offers brought to you for future media buys.
Once you have your Control ad start buying your media
You may only have one type of ad but you know it is a winner. Now it’s time to roll out the ad to a larger market place. You need to find the place to make these ad purchases and then how you can get discounts from them as you buy more advertising.
In most cases getting discounts means spending a lot of money and this is not likely to be the case for a long time but you can never tell when you will get a winner ad.
When it happens you need to be ready to roll it out. Saving on your advertising costs puts a direct profit into your jeans. This is one of the biggest expenses you will have with your business so you need to be an expert even with small media buys.
Buying advertising is a great way to add to your profit margins. The savings you earn with your negotiations here go directly to your bottom line. They can even be used to buy more advertising space.