5 Steps to Build a Flawless Media Plan

There are many components of a successful marketing strategy, but there's a strong argument to be made that one of the most important aspects is an effective media plan.

This encompasses pretty much everything to do with how you share media content with your audience, from your driving motivations for doing so, to the precise details of how, when and where you’ll distribute your materials and measure their impact.

Given the enormous importance of high-quality content in the modern marketing industry, the decisions you make at the media planning stage are likely to prove critical.

Why is it so important to have a media plan?

One of the fundamental reasons whfy you need a media plan is to ensure that you're taking a structured, well-researched approach to distributing and sharing your content. Planning is a vital step on the way to ultimate success in marketing, whether you're thinking about the best settings for your advertising, which social media platforms will give you the best chance of engaging with customers, or any other media-related questions.

Specific benefits you can expect to gain from media planning include:

• Gaining a deeper understanding of your target audience as you research what methods and channels will give you the best chance of connecting with them.
• Being able to make confident decisions about where to place and share your content.
• Keeping up with the most recent media trends and technological developments that could prove beneficial to your marketing efforts.
• Better adherence to your marketing budget thanks to a clear plan for using and leveraging different media types.

When it comes to creating an effective media plan, you'll want to think about how to tailor and execute it to get the best possible results.

1. Research your market

Market research is one of the most significant parts of the entire media planning process. It helps you get a better idea of your customers (both your current audience and prospective buyers) by looking into factors like:

• The sort of content that is most likely to resonate with them
• Their favored content delivery channels and social media platforms
• What needs or problems they have
• The times they're most active and engaged

Armed with this information, you can make more accurate decisions about what content to incorporate into your media plan and how to distribute it.

2. Establish goals

All the effort and investment you put into your media plan could be for nothing if you don't know the eventual results you're aiming for.

When the time comes to establish your goals, it's important to think about the key drivers behind your marketing efforts, the results you're trying to achieve and how these align with the aims of the business as a whole.

Common marketing objectives that can be supported by your media plan include:

• Raising brand awareness
• Driving interest in a new product or service
• Increasing customer engagement by encouraging sign-ups to webinars or your email newsletter

Make sure the final goals you settle on are SMART:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Actionable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

3. Decide on your tools

One of the key benefits for modern marketers is the range of tools available to support your media planning.

Templates can prove particularly useful when you want to take some of the legwork out of the process, without compromising quality or customization. Other media planning tools can help you gain a holistic view of the various moving parts involved in the process and give everyone on the marketing team a single, consistent source of information.

4. Implement

When you feel sufficiently prepared and ready to launch your media plan, it's vital to ensure that everyone involved in the project is fully aware of the part they’ll be playing.

Anyone who has questions or topics they feel unsure about should be encouraged to raise them before the implementation begins, to avoid any errors or issues arising further down the line. All members of the team should be fully aware of key factors like the target audience and the ultimate goals of the project, to ensure that everyone is working to the same goal.

5. Measure results

Implementation doesn't mark the end of your media planning efforts. If you want to get an accurate idea of the outcomes you're gaining from your investment and hard work, you need to measure results. Setting specific goals from the start will give you a clear benchmark to measure against.

It's important to gauge and analyze your results regardless of the size of your plan, whether it's fairly limited in scope or it encompasses an array of media and content types over a long period of time.

If you're collecting and evaluating your data effectively, you'll have a clear picture of where your media planning efforts are yielding benefits, and where you need to change things to improve performance.