Gain your objectives by choosing the right channels

Your customers watch TV. They read newspapers and magazines. They see billboards. They research on the Internet and read e-mail. And hundreds of advertising messages reach them through all of these media. But which ones work best for you to reach them? And how many should you use?

Plan your media effectively and you can hit your customers right between the eyes. Plan poorly and you can blow a lot of money fast, without hitting anything. Check out our lineup of media planning tips and you’ll find the right buttons to push to make your customers tune in.

Learn how to evaluate media

First, you need to decide which characteristics are the most important for your product and audience. Does your audience need to see your product to understand its benefits? Is your audience a small group with specific tastes? Do you need to get the word out quickly?

Determine which of the following media characteristics are the most critical:

• Selectivity – How well a media can be used to target niche markets. Radio is good because different age groups and genders have different listening preferences. Network TV has poor selectivity because it reaches a large, fairly broad group of viewers.
• Participation – The degree a medium involves the consumer. Web sites have high participation because you need to click links to navigate. TV and radio have low participation because you can leave the room and the media will keep broadcasting without you.
• Reach vs. frequency – Is the medium better at reaching a lot of different people who are exposed to your message, or is it better at exposing your message frequently to your target?
• Cost per thousand (CPM) – The cost of reaching 1,000 people with your message, the most common way to compare one medium to another.
• Production cost – The cost of producing the message in the given medium’s format.
• Production speed – The time required to produce the message in the given medium.
• Insertion speed – How quickly you can place the message in the medium.
• Permanence – How long the message lasts. Some messages last a long time (such as an outdoor board). Some last a day (such as a newspaper ad). Others a few seconds (such as TV and radio).

Next, evaluate each medium to see which has strengths in the characteristics critical to your product or message so you can pick the best one. 

Television 

• Selectivity – Target by sex or age, or by interests (cable TV) or local geography
• Participation – None
• Reach vs. frequency – Reach
• CPM – $5 to $400
• Production cost – $5,000 for decent local to $1 million for great national
• Production speed – A month, minimum
• Insertion speed – As fast as 24 hours
• Permanence – Short. Only 30 seconds.
• Advantage – Allows you to demonstration your product or service so that people can see the benefits, such as cleaning products or tools.

Radio 

• Selectivity – Target by age, to a degree
• Participation – None
• Reach vs. frequency – Frequency
• CPM – $7 to $45
• Production cost – $1,000 for decent to $5,000 for great
• Production speed – Less than a week
• Insertion speed – 24 hours
• Permanence – Short. Only 30 or 60 seconds.
• Advantage – Allows you to paint mental images in your audience’s minds. You can create those images cheaply and easily. The sound effect of a zooming jet is much cheaper than using a real one.

Magazine 

• Selectivity – High, because most magazines focus on a specific audience, such as doll collectors or hotrod enthusiasts.
• Participation – Some
• Reach vs. frequency – Frequency
• CPM – $9 to $130, depending on circulation size
• Production cost – $1,500 for decent to $10,000 for great
• Production speed – Less than a month
• Insertion speed – Slow. Up to 90 days.
• Permanence – 30 days
• Advantage – Products advertised in magazines are seen by the public as having a high-quality image.

Newspaper 

• Selectivity – Low. Only geographic.
• Participation – Some
• Reach vs. frequency – Frequency
• CPM – $5 to $15; $20 and up for national newspapers
• Production cost – $500 for decent to $2,500 for great
• Production speed – Less than a week
• Insertion speed – Four days
• Permanence – One day
• Advantage – Immediacy, because people feel like a newspaper’s content is news and needs to be reacted to immediately.

Outdoor 

• Selectivity – Geographic
• Participation – By accident, since you only see an outdoor board when you aren’t paying attention to your main activity — driving.
• Reach vs. frequency – Reach
• CPM – Low but questionable, since CPM counts every man, woman and child in a car moving past your board, not who saw the board.
• Production cost – $1,500 plus $200 for paper or $1,000 for vinyl
• Production speed – Four weeks
• Insertion speed – Roughly two weeks
• Permanence – 10 seconds for 30 days
• Advantage – Your message is large and it gives you a high-quality image.

Direct Mail 

• Selectivity – High
• Participation – High or not at all
• Reach vs. frequency – Targeted reach
• CPM – $900 and up
• Production cost – Hard to quantify. Printing, stuffing, postage, etc. drive up cost per contact. Often near or more than $1 per person.
• Production speed – Three to four weeks
• Insertion speed – One week
• Permanence – From one look up to days
• Advantage – You can ask the recipient to place an order with you.

Web site 

• Selectivity – None, yet highly self-selected
• Participation – Very high
• Reach vs. frequency – Reach sites use banners or other promotions to drive tons of people to the site once. Frequency sites are ones people visit again and again, such as news sites.
• CPM – Zero (except for minimal hosting costs). All costs are production.
• Production cost – $25,000 minimum for a good site or much, much higher.
• Production speed – One to three months
• Insertion speed – Immediate
• Permanence – From one look to years
• Advantage – Interactivity and a high-quality image

Web banner 

• Selectivity – By interest or subject
• Participation – None to high
• Reach vs. frequency – Reach
• CPM – Varies widely, depending on the popularity of the site. For example, the NY Times site claims from $20 to $40 based on the size of the banner.
• Production cost – $500 to $2,000
• Production speed – Less than a week
• Insertion speed – Immediate
• Permanence – Seconds
• Advantage – Can drive traffic to your Web site.

Media outside the box 

• In-store promotions, including ads on shopping carts, TVs, receipts or dispensers
  Prizes on game shows
• Trucks, which can serve as rolling billboards for your message.
• Market-specific. For example, an RV manufacturer could sponsor all the garbage cans in a national forest. A soft drink producer could offer a free trial at a fast food chain for a day. The possibilities are endless.
• Pick the right media for your message and you’ll reach the most customers for your money. And the more of your audience you reach, the more your profits will soar up the charts.

Need better results? Media planning is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547. 

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you're really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm