Media Buying Black Hole?
A media buying team is working late, against a project deadline. Suddenly, a Genie appears before them and offers to grant them all one wish. The Copywriter says: "I've always dreamed of writing a novel and having my work studied in schools. I'd like to go to a tropical island where I can write my masterpiece." The Genie says "No problem!" and poof! The Copywriter is gone. The Art Director says: "I want to create a painting so beautiful that it would hang in the Louvre. I want to go to Provence to work on my painting." The Genie says "Your wish is granted! and poof! The Art Director is gone. The Genie then turns to the Team Leader and says "And what is your wish?" "I want those two b******s back here right now."
Media buying, especially advertising, is serious work and can prove to be a black hole for cash. So a key question when buying media is how to get better results from your advertising. There are many more effective ways to market than just advertising. Many businesses depend too heavily on advertising, when there are many more effective ways to market. In addition, advertising can be one of the most expensive marketing options.
Media buyers should look at more cost effective marketing strategies before reaching for advertising. Always test and measure your advertising and stop any advertising that isn't working. The importance of analysis when it comes media buying cannot be overstated. If your adverts are working, you want to roll them out on a larger scale. If they're not, STOP and reallocate the money.
Only ever run adverts that are going to produce a response. This is known as direct response advertising. The other form of advertising is institutional (or brand) advertising. This is what Cadbury and BMW engage in. It's designed to build and sustain awareness of their brand. If you're in a small or medium sized business, brand advertising is almost certainly a huge waste of money.
The purpose of your adverts must be to produce a response. In the advert, the most important element is the headline. It needs to grab peoples' attention. One change in a headline can produce a 50 -100% increase in response. (TIP: If the headline of your ad is currently the name of your company, you can almost certainly increase the response rate by changing it.)
The copy of your ad needs to be a personal communication to the individual reading it. And it needs to be about the customer. It needs to address their needs, desires and fears and it needs to constantly communicate the benefits of what you are offering.
Media buying begins and ends with the customer. It is a business function like any other that needs to be guided by the business vision of quality. Quality is defined as meeting the customer requirements. So the other aspect of an effective advert is that it leads the customer to act in response to the message. Without an effective response mechanism from the customer to the advertiser media buying is just a black hole into which you throw your money.
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