The Different Types of Media Planning You Need to Know

These days, there are so many different types of media planning to choose from. So how do you know which type will work best? And what exactly is a media planning, anyway?

In this guide, we’ll take a look at the different types of media planning and how they can help you reach your audience in different ways.

Ready to get started? Let’s dive in!

Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar is a type of media planning that helps you track, organize, and schedule your content. This can be anything from blog posts and articles to social media posts and even email marketing campaigns.

Having an editorial calendar can help you stay on track and make sure your content is timely and relevant.
There are a few different types of editorial calendars you can use, depending on your needs.

The most popular type is the linear editorial calendar, which helps you plan out your content in a linear fashion. This is great for long-term planning and for keeping track of deadlines.

Another type of editorial calendar is the matrix editorial calendar. This type of calendar helps you plan out your content based on both time and topic. If you have a lot of ideas, but don’t know what order they should go in, this type of calendar is perfect for you.

A third type of editorial calendar is the conceptual editorial calendar. Unlike the first two types, this one doesn’t have dates or deadlines associated with it.

Instead, it focuses on key topics and their potential audience – helping your team brainstorm ideas before choosing what would work best. It’s a good type of calendar to use if you’re not interested in deadlines or schedules, but want to create more personalized campaigns.

Finally, there’s the mixed media strategy. As its name suggests, this type of strategy combines two or more types of media planning into one cohesive plan. For example, maybe your company wants to focus on SEO for Google and Facebook ads at the same time.

Or maybe you want blogs about new product lines as well as Twitter chats about them too! Mixed media strategies give you all the benefits of multiple types of planning without having to divide up your resources.

Emotional Connection

Advertising is all about creating an emotional connection with your audience. And one of the best ways to do that is through a well-executed media plan. But what exactly is a media plan?

A media plan is a strategy that outlines how and when you’ll use different types of media to achieve your marketing goals.

The types of media that are most commonly used in advertising campaigns include television, radio, newspapers, magazines, social media platforms, billboards, online banner ads, etc.

The first step in planning any campaign is deciding which type(s) of media you want to target (called ‘target market’) and then choosing which type(s) of advertising will be used for each medium.

Once you’ve decided on your targets and ad type(s), it’s time to set specific objectives for each type of media – such as generating awareness, persuading someone to purchase a product or service, changing someone’s opinion about something, or convincing them to take some sort of action.

Next, decide on the appropriate reach and frequency of exposure. There are two types of frequency: how often the individual sees your message (reach) and how often they see it within a given period of time (frequency).

For example, if you wanted to advertise a new type of car over three months, you could run 12 ads per month instead of 6 so that viewers see 3 commercials every two weeks instead of just once every month.

Reach Goals

Before you start creating your advertising media plan, you need to first understand what your reach goals are. These are the number of people you want to see or hear your message.

Once you know your reach goals, you can start planning which types of media will help you achieve them.

There are three main types of media:

Paid media: This is anything that you have to pay for, like television commercials or print ads.
Owned media: It is anything that you control, like your website or social media channels.
Earned media: It is any coverage or mention that you get for free, like a positive review from a satisfied customer.

Media planning steps typically include coming up with an objective, defining who your target audience is, developing a budget, deciding on types of media, and scheduling when they will be used.

If you’re having trouble narrowing down your objectives, consider asking yourself What do I want my customers to do?

To learn more about media planning definition and examples of media plans, click here.

Results-Based Results (RBR)

RBR is a media planning process that focuses on the results of your campaigns. This type of planning is great for businesses that want to see a direct return on their investment (ROI).

To create an RBR plan, you’ll need to set campaign goals, determine which channels will help you reach those goals, and then track and measure your results.

Here are the steps you’ll need to take:

Set campaign goals: What do you want your campaign to achieve? Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or generate leads?
Determine which channels will help you reach those goals: Once you know what you want to achieve, you can start researching which channels will be most effective in helping you reach your goals.

For example, if you’re looking to grow your audience size, it may make sense to focus on digital media. If you’re looking to generate more sales, it may make sense to focus on paid search ads.

Once you’ve identified which channels are best suited for reaching your goals, it’s time to create a campaign plan.

Expanding Your Reach

There are a variety of ways to expand your reach when it comes to media planning.

Depending on your goals, you’ll want to use different methods to target new audiences.

Here are a few common media planning process steps:

• Determine your target audience.
• Research the different types of media that would be most effective in reaching your target audience.
• Plan and buy ad space on the chosen media outlets.
• Create an advertising schedule that outlines when and where your ads will run.
• Monitor your results and make changes to your plan as needed.
• Evaluate your results and adjust your plan for future campaigns.
  If you find that a particular campaign is more successful than others, you may want to shift budget allocations to take advantage of this success.
  Or if certain demographics respond better than others to your messages, you may want to focus more resources in these areas.
  It’s important not only to evaluate how well your campaign performed but also how effectively you reached your desired target audience using specific media outlets.

Distribution Methods

There are many ways to distribute your content once it’s created.

Here are some common methods:

Social media: This is one of the most popular and effective ways to distribute content. You can use platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to share your content with a wide audience.
Email: You can email your blog post or other piece of content to subscribers or customers. This is a great way to build relationships and keep people in the loop.
Press release: If you have newsworthy content, you can send it out to media outlets in the form of a press release. This can help you get coverage from major publications.
Paid advertising: You can also pay to have your content promoted on social media or through other channels. Paid advertising may be more expensive than other distribution methods, but it gives you more control over where your content appears.
Forums: Engaging in forums is one way to distribute your content to get traffic. You can ask and answer people’s questions and link back to your content. You only need not to spam!
Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO involves promoting your website or blog so that it shows up higher on search engine results pages. If someone does a Google search for content marketing, for example, and you’re ranking #1 for that term, then chances are they’ll visit your site first when they click on those results. It takes time to see any real ROI from SEO, but if done correctly this strategy can really boost traffic to your site over time.
Events: Another way to reach an audience is by hosting events. For instance, industry conferences are great places to network and promote your company or brand face-to-face.

Conclusion

The goal of any media plan is to reach the target audience with the right message, at the right time, and through the right channel.

Successful media plans often require a mix of advertising, public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing, and personal selling.

For example, if you want to use a TV commercial to introduce your new product on an upcoming program that has high viewership (and high exposure), then you will also need to consider how many people actually watch that program.

In this way, media planning integrates all facets of marketing strategy and execution in order to provide an appropriate response for each specific situation.