What are the details to consider when you want to plan an advertising campaign effectively? How do you take into account the editorial calendar and the monthly newspaper highlights? What do you do when the company participates in trade fairs? Stefania Duminuco, media planner at fruitecom, answers these questions for us.
In the previous article “Advertising planning: this is how a good media planner works”, we saw how, once the the advertising message we want to convey has been identified and we have chosen the target audience, we must evaluate publications also based on (apparently) secondary aspects.
What to publish and when
When planning advertising, when the media planner identifies the online and / or print publications that are best suited to relating the company's product to the client, it is important that she/he is thoroughly familiar with the editorial calendar of these publications: what topics are published and when, as well as when the focus pieces or in-depth analyzes, specials, columns, etc. are published.
What is an editorial calendar? The editorial calendar or plan is the program of the content that each editorial platform develops based on its objectives and the target it wants to reach.
Knowing the editorial calendar is therefore essential to maximize advertising investment.
Nurturing good relationships: why choose an agency that offers press office and advertising services?The professional media planner is always up-to-date on what is about to happen in publications that are important to their customers. They can have advance information about the editorial calendar of the publication with which they negotiate advertising space thanks to their connections with the editors, or with the publishing house commercial team dedicated to the relationship with media planners. Sometimes, the sale of advertising space is entrusted to an outside advertising agency.
A good media planner will need to know the publishing houses, one by one, including the editorial products they offer and the advertising spaces that are for sale. They must know how to build good relationships so that the publishing houses themselves can come to inform them of potential visibility opportunities for the client company.
The integration of the media planning activity with the press office activity can maximize the results of advertising planning. An example? The press officer can intercept some editorial opportunities in advance, such as specials or dossiers, which the media planner knows of because of his or her own advertising planning.
Promoting presence: online or offline?
The company's advertising planning can be offline and online. The choice depends on the schedule of the publishing house and of the client company, and on the target audience. The ideal thing is to plan a cross-channel campaign that makes traditional and digital tools work in synergy.
If we speak of digital communication, it is useful, for example, to provide a link that can bring the user to a landing page of interest such as to the client’s site or to an article on the same newspaper.
It is always good to remember that each media imposes its own timeline.
Be mindful of timing!
With offline media, times are longer. For example, if you want to use a particular paper edition, the planning will have to start months in advance because you will have to consider the physical production time of the magazine. This means that the advertising material must be received in time for publication.
When it comes to online media, times are shorter: in extreme cases, the advertisement may already be visible on the same day the materials are sent, but to allow publications to work without haste it is advisable to send the materials at least three days in advance of the publication date.
Choosing the ad
In addition to the classic advertising formats that highlight a product by means of images and a very short caption, you can increase resonance by adding an editorial (a journalistic article) to the advertising page.
For strategic reasons, a company will occasionally need to describe and promote itself with a logic that is distant from that of brand promotion. In this case, the media planner could suggest a "content" advertisement: the so-called "advertorial", an advertisement that looks very much like a real article, or what is called "native", in the context of digital advertising i.e. a "Non-advertising" which does not attack the user, and which, on the contrary, is perfectly integrated into the news flow of the online magazine.
Trade fairs
Having an advertising space in a trade magazine distributed on the days of the fair considerably increases the chances of potential customers visiting the stand and helps disseminate the ad.
Therefore, when planning advertising releases, it is good to know not only if the client company intends to participate in trade fairs, but also if the publishing house and the magazine on which you choose to advertise will be present at the fairs.
Thus, the media planner will need to know which issues of the publication will be distributed at the fair and, to maximize the company's visibility, will be able to redefine the creativity of the advertising message based on the objectives that the company has set for that event.
For example, by adding in the advertisement a reminder that indicates the number of the hall and the stand at the fair. Or, with an online banner that calls attention to the client’s presence at the fair.
It is very important to identify the moments in which the resonance of the advertisement can be amplified, such as at trade fairs or specific focus pieces in publications of reference.
3 things a good media planner should not forget:
1) They must know how to collaborate. Having good relationships with key professionals in publishing houses is not enough. The media planner works closely with all relevant figures: members of creative teams, graphic designers, and the press office. If, for example, the advertising page needs to be modified to communicate the company's presence at the fair, the media planner must contact the graphic designer in advance to plan the ways and times to make the changes to avoiding losing an opportunity with an already established media.
2) They must know how to manage. Managing the advertising planning within the agency is the hardest part! After choosing the publications to include in the advertising planning, you must meet deadlines, send the final drafts in time, check that they have been published, retrieve the receipts! At the end of a media campaign, for example, it is important to request an advertising diffusion report (interested sites, impressions, clicks, etc.)
3) They must stay up to date. A good media planner must always stay up to date: in this regard, we mention the media planning groups on LinkedIn, the 24-Hour Business School masters, events on the digital sector such as Lab Forum, or the numerous online platforms such as Ninja Marketing, which publish useful and authoritative information.
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