7 Questions to Ask When Creating Media Plans

Scattered consumer attention and greater audience fragmentation have made it challenging to devise a strategic, successful and results-driven media plan.

So how do we know where to start and how to build a plan that will truly break through the clutter? To make a meaningful connection with our audiences and make the best use of our budgets, what are the right questions to ask before we delve into planning?

We asked the experts on our Connections Team. Let's meet them.

AfterMath Connections Team

Let’s assume we already know the campaign basics: business goals, marketing objectives, success metrics, target audience, budget, geographic footprint and any other foundational planning parameters. Now, it's time to dig deeper.

1. What Makes the Audience Tick?

Mike: In this modern media landscape, this is one of the critical questions we ask ourselves before delving into planning. Sure, we might have some of their demographic and psychographic details, but we need to understand their needs, passions and motivations to find ways to truly connect with them.

We need to understand how the audience evaluates brands, how they shop and how they buy to create the right messaging at the right time, through channels and touchpoints that will compel them to choose our brands. Audience personas built on first-hand, interview-based research are usually very helpful for this exercise.

2. What Does the Customer Journey Look Like?

Cailey: When planning, we try to tap into the mindset of the audience at each stage of the journey, from the first brand trigger in the awareness stage through that final push to get the consumer to convert, whether that's a purchase, sign-up or some other action that we consider valuable for the brand. Thorough research and insight gathering are critical to build out these journeys—not only understanding the consumer but also understanding the context of the moment.

The key moments in a customer’s journey help us drive the considerations from a marketing standpoint—the audience mindset, the behaviors, the touch points, the message, etc.— and how we can really resonate with the consumer in that journey (moment) and prove or track it as well.

3. Are the Goals and Objectives Truly Measurable?

Parker: When it comes down to analytics, we have various goals to achieve depending on the project, but what are the specific metrics around those goals? Measuring specific KPIs helps us understand how something is or isn’t working.

Naturally, this leads us to our next question.

4. Do We Have the Right Resources to Measure KPIs?

Parker: Awareness is an example of a broad goal that can mean many different things. How do you truly know if awareness has increased? Is it simply brand recall? Brand familiarity? Aided/unaided awareness? How are these things measured (brand study, survey, etc.)? We need to make sure we are aligned on what the metrics mean and how they're defined to have a measurement plan that all parties can agree on.

5. What New Media Technologies Are at Our Disposal?

Cailey: This question might tip the decision scales more now than it did 15 years ago, and it is critical because it forces us to stay apprised of technological developments. Digital and social media trends in our industry can uncover various platforms and media touch points where we can find our audiences.

It should come as no surprise that AI has a place in the digital ad tech space today. We use AI for media activities like social listening, social conversation targeting and other programmatic ad targeting. These activities depend on an AI system to learn, optimize and continually get smarter to help us carry out complex and hyper-targeted campaigns. Examples of these AI systems include Google Bard, ChatGPT and the latest Bing AI-assisted search platform.

We need to stay on top of macro trends, such as the growth (and resulting fragmentation) of streaming platforms and how the various platforms align with our audiences. However, we must also keep up with micro-trends, such as new, unique offerings from the industry's leading-edge media platforms. We're constantly asking questions about key topics such as privacy protection, targeting capabilities, tracking and measurement capabilities, creative solutions, and day-to-day optimization, just to name a few.

6. What Are the Outside Factors that Could Influence Our Plan?

Parker: We must always be aware of what's happening in the world around us, especially when there could be possible barriers or even potential opportunities.

Political advertising is a massive outside factor that all advertisers will face this year. This force has a seemingly infinite budget and will take over many different media channels throughout the year until Election Day. As marketers, we must ask ourselves how to make the most of our budgets to combat the influx of new ads out in the market.

Inflation is another outside factor that will continue to impact marketing budgets, as consumers with tighter pockets are less likely to spend. Because of this, we must find creative ways to connect with consumers in the moments that resonate best.

We must constantly examine the world around us and consider how social, cultural, economic or other changes could affect how we integrate our brands into consumers' everyday lives.

7. What's the Most Creative and Impactful Way to Communicate Our Message?

Mike: We don't just think about the medium; we think about how to make that medium work to its fullest potential by starting with the message and building from there.

We've promoted healthcare plans in waiting rooms of doctors' offices with tailored signage and informational packets geared toward Medicare-aged patients. We’ve geo-fenced lottery ticket retail locations to reach our target audiences when they’re close, driving them in-store to purchase. We've even promoted lesser-known ways to remove dead bugs from your car by hiring street teams to demonstrate how it works for people in parking lots at local sporting events, and by advertising at gas stations and on Waze when people are in or near their bug-covered cars.

It's all about what will be most effective and personally significant to the individual consumers to get them to act (buy, sign up or call us, whatever that action may be).

Strategic Media Planning Makes Great Campaigns

Are you struggling with media plans? We think about media planning all the time.
Maybe you don't, but luckily, that's where we can help.

Contact the Connections Team and Mike Pocci at mpocci@teamaftermath.com

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