Why You Should Invest In A Media Agency

If you are looking to take your business to the next level, you may be considering hiring an advertising agency to put together the slickest ad campaign possible. While this is a surefire way to gain the attention of new customers and create a brand image in their minds, it will fall on deaf ears if you don't develop a strategy to make that campaign as widely seen and effective as possible. This is where it may be wise to hire a media agency.

Media agencies specialize in media buying. It can be said that media buying is the art of advertisement optimization. A media buyer acts as a liaison between the advertising agency you hire and the media companies you'll be buying ad space or time from. Media buying and planning is an arduous process. It involves choosing the best options with the allocated budget for the campaign. The media agency will consider how effective different kinds of media will be in reaching your audience and how much to spend on each format.They'll also discover which demographics should be the target of your advertisements, as well as the location and psychographics of these target audiences.What times to advertise and how often to advertise are also things media buyers consider.

A media agency can offer you other valuable tools. It can develop a media strategy with you. While other aspects of an agency's work are involved in aligning all parties involved - your ad agency, the media companies, and you, the media strategy the media agency draws up focuses on the advertisement itself. The media strategist analyses what message you want to be delivered to your niche market and the market in general, and what message would be most effective. The competent media strategist identifies the personality of your target audience and what influences it. The desires, needs, and dreams of a 16 year-old girl will be drastically different from those of a 56 year-old white collar worker. You'll rarely see flashy advertisements for a trendy clothing brand played side-by-side with a stoic, stately ad for a hedge fund management firm.

A media agency can also use competitive analysis to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your main rivals. After the ad campaign has finished, it can also give you a post by analysis, statistical data that tells you how effective your ads were and which audiences were reached.

With the costs that come with placing advertisement in today's media, you can't afford not to optimize the publicity of your business. There are a hundred ways media buying can go wrong and turn an otherwise incredible ad campaign into a dud. Think of a media agency as insurance for your ad's success.

Adboss are the experts in media buying and planning for any businesses. Our specialised media agency will find you the best options and take the hassle and expense out of buying it.

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6 Signs An Agency Gets Social Media

We talk to our clients often about what social media can do for their businesses, online and off. Most of the time we find they know they should be using those channels, but they're not quite sure how.

The value of using social media as a marketing tool is constantly evolving. But there are still substantial principles that pertain to using social media in conjunction with a website that have surfaced over past couple of years.

Below are some ways you can tell if an agency has a good, basic understanding of how to use social media to drive traffic to your website and increase conversions once people are there.

1- They use social media as a channel in an existing strategic marketing plan.

Social media should be used as a tool, not the answer for a lack of goals and objectives. Your agency should be coming up with a plan for social media that integrates with your existing messaging strategy, content and audience. If there isn't one, you've got bigger things to worry about than not having a Facebook page.

The agency you choose should be emphasizing social media as a channel for your content marketing and promotions and an additional way to engage your targeted audience with your great content.

Don't have content to post? Before you start thinking about getting 5,000 Twitter followers, focus on finding out what will make people want to follow you, and maybe even become your customer. Chances are, it's not your logo or the number of times you tweet about your solar-powered lawnmowers in an hour. You must create content that will compel them to want more from you. This means you have to sell more than just a product.

2- They create sites with pages and content that is shareable.

You know you want your website to be "social media friendly" but what does that really mean besides making sure its URLs work right when you post them on Facebook?

The first thing your agency should do is make sure specific pages of your website are equipped with social media sharing tools. And not just every page, only those you've identified as pages your potential customers will want to share with people in their networks.

For instance, it wouldn't make sense to embed an instant share widget for Facebook and Twitter on a Terms of Agreement page. But adding share tools to a product page would be a strategic move. In one click, your customer could potentially share your product with hundreds of people in their network and ask them what they think about it. You wouldn't believe the high percentage of people who rely on their trusted networks for advice on everything from buying a new camera to moving to another city!

3- They integrate social media feeds and functionality, when appropriate.

If you ask me, there is nothing worse than landing on a website only to find a virtual waste dump of social media feeds, pointless widgets and every blog post the company has ever written flashing in blinking lights on the homepage. No one wants to see this when they walk through your door - trust me. There is a big difference between an interactive site and a lack of editing.

Use good judgment on the homepage and don't bury your main calls to action for the sake of gaining a follower on Twitter. And while your at it, let them "Like" you on Facebook right from your website. Your prospect is there because you invited them. Don't release them into the social media jungle as soon as they arrive. Chances are, they may end up "Liking" you on Facebook, but the moment someone posts a photo in their newsfeed, your customer, and your sale, are as good as gone.

Solution? Make social media icons subtly prominent. There is a middle ground. If someone wants to follow you on Twitter, they will find the icon, even without all of the blinking lights, feeds and arrows.

4- They emphasize your website as a home base for all of your content.

This obviously relates to the first section of this post. You want all of the most meaningful engagements your customer has with your brand as close to your product as possible. Cultivating a community on an island is not recommended. You must create content that sends them back to the homeland - your website.

This relies on the creation of meaningful, quality content that people want to click on, read and share. Don't blog on Facebook. Blog from your website and market that content through your Facebook page. The idea of social media is to use it as a tool to drive traffic, so you must make your website your customers' ultimate destination. Think of your website as the Hawaii of your Internet marketing plan. All efforts should end on your shore.

5- They don't guarantee you a number of Likes or followers.

I'll try not to use the analogy of buying friends here. Well, I guess that means I just did. You get the picture. If an agency guarantees your page a number of likes or followers, something is wrong. It's one thing to project follower numbers based on marketing initiatives and promotional contests, it's another to sell you a package of 500 followers without a single campaign or any content. Be wary.

The purpose of using social media in marketing is to create meaningful engagement with people who want more from your brand than just knowing when the next sale is. It doesn't matter if you have 20 followers or 7,000, if none of them are engaging with you (or becoming your customer, for that matter) your message and efforts are completely in vain.

6- They keep up to date on the latest developments and trends in social media.

It seems every day there's a hot new way to use Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, you name it, to engage your customers and market your brand. And these platforms change and become more robust on a regular basis. All of this means the agency you choose should be absolutely enthusiastic about online marketing and how social media can be used to accomplish your marketing objectives.

And the key isn't just to know about the latest trends and developments, it's about knowing whether or not the social bells and whistles will work for your business. At the end of the day, a holistic and comprehensive approach to online marketing that includes the use of social media channels is optimal. It can be hard to resist the temptation to navigate social media without a compass but eventually your returns will let you know when it's time to reposition your efforts.

Continuing education from valuable resources and an in-depth knowledge of things like SEO, content strategy and user experience are the backbone of a successful social media strategy.

Do you have any more tips to find out if an agency knows how to use social media successfully? Let us know in the comments below.

Camella Mendez, Content and Social Media Strategist
Internet Exposure, a Minneapolis web design agency

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The 8 Reasons to Use a Media Buying Services Agency

More often than not, new advertisers will set up their own ad buys and handle the media buying themselves. While this might be a wonderful educational experience, it is usually a big mistake, costing the company time, money and marketing results. Even if your company has experience in buying media, it would be wise to consider the following eight reasons for working with a professional media buying services agency.

1. It Costs Nothing

When you use a media buying services agency to buy your company's radio and television advertising, the agency is paid through an agency-only discount provided by the station. For example, let's say you want to buy an ad spot that costs $1000. If you work directly with the media station sales rep, that spot costs $1000. If you work with a media buying agency, that spot still costs $1000. Why? Because television stations give the media buyer a discount (usually 15%). This discount is not available to your company; only an established media buying agency is eligible to receive it. Your company pays the exact same amount, and your media buying services agency does the work, paid for by the station.

In our example, it might seem like overkill to introduce a buyer into the mix. If you were buying a limited run on a single station, you could probably do it yourself. On the other hand, longer runs or ads running on more than one station are much more complex. As a matter of fact, as you read on, you will find that not only does using a media buyer not cost anything, it actually stretches your ad budget to help you get a lot more for your advertising dollar.

2. Negotiation "Clout"

Media buying services agencies often have quite a bit of buying influence - in both local and national markets. Professional media buying agencies place advertising for several clients, giving them a total spend much larger than a single company might bring to the table. As you might guess, this level of spending gives them some real advantages when negotiating contracts. Your advertising schedule will benefit with lower prices per spot and better timeslots.

3. Negotiation Know-How

Professional media buyers will tell you that negotiating media buys is often more art than science. A really good buyer truly understands the stations being bought, knows how to reach a compromise that helps your company as well as the station and understands the tricks and traps that could cause problems with the buy.

Here's an example: For one reason or another, television stations often "bump" spots (remove them from the schedule). If your negotiated price is below a certain threshold, your spots have a high likelihood of being bumped instead of another advertiser who is paying higher. The professional media buyer understands this and knows how to prevent this problem.

4. Tracking & "Make-Good" Ads

When you buy television advertising, your cost is based on the station's promise that a certain number of people will see your spot. What happens if they don't? Let's say they promise a million viewers but only half that number tune in (something that happens quite often). What then? Think the station will track you down and let you know it happened, then offer some way to make up for it? Not likely.

A professional media buyer tracks the ratings for your advertising to make sure you get everything that you paid for. In the case above, your media buyer will request "make goods," essentially free spots to make up for the ratings difference. This is huge benefit that will save your budget while also increasing delivery of your message. (For example, in 2008, we tracked a more than 20% under-delivery in one of our markets, saving our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars.)

5. No More Sales Hassles

Your media buying services agency becomes the point of contact for all media reps - those working with your company and those who want to. You're never stuck on the phone discussing "special advertising prices" or "one-day deals" again.

For one of our clients, this was by far his top benefit - even more than the money he saves, he enjoys the ability to tell media reps that he has a media agency and they should call us instead of him.

6. No More Accounting Hassles

No matter how hard you plan, television advertising billing fluctuates and is sometimes incorrect. This due to programming changes, scheduling adjustments and numerous other reasons. Within a media buying services company, you have an accountant that is accustomed to working with television stations to make sure that budgets are kept. This helps you avoid surprises in billing, and it gives you piece of mind that your invoices are correct.

7. More Time In Your Day

If you take away all of the accounting hassles, calls from sales reps, research into shows and networks, and all of the other miscellaneous work that goes into good media buying, then you can save lots of time. If you've worked with a media buying services agency, you know that working with one contact and company saves tons of time over placing on multiple media outlets.

8. Big-Picture Strategy

One of the biggest benefits of working with a media buyer is that they can often see the big picture in a way that the individual sales reps cannot. Your professional media buyer knows your target customers as well as all of your placements and all of your marketing goals. Instead of ordering media based on a station's open inventory (what TV stations call their commercial slots), a professional buy is based on getting you what you need at the best prices available.

John T. Mims, APR, is a senior partner with Altyris, a full-service advertising and public relations agency located in High Point, NC. For more information about Altyris and their media buying services, visit http://www.altyris.com.

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