A media plan is a strategic document that outlines how you will use different media channels to achieve your communication goals for a project. It helps you to target the right audiences, deliver the right messages, and measure the results of your media efforts. In this article, we will show you how to create a media plan for a project in six steps.
The first step is to define what you want to achieve with your media plan. What are the specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals of your project? How do they align with your overall organizational or brand objectives? How will you evaluate your success? Write down your objectives clearly and concisely, and make sure they are aligned with your project scope and budget.
Too many media plans start with channels. This is a nonsense. Imagine wanting to build a house and immediately calling a bricklayer? You just wouldn’t do it. The media plan is itself an output of a carefully crafted piece of ‘architecture’ where everything is understood and considered to ensure the outcome is fit for purpose. The art of media planning starts with budgeting, and understanding what is feasible. Only then can you define your objectives and start your crafting your way to building a successful plan.
Media is a tactic and not a strategy. It can't be a stand alone part of a communications plan - but it can be the primary or only tactic. Understand what media can and cannot achieve for you. If you stakeholders define success as impressions or hits, do you have a sexy enough story to meet those KPI's? Also consider your audience and where they go for information. This can also impact success if there is a misalignment between vanity metrics and meaningful audience outcomes.
1. Define project goals: Clearly understand the objectives of the project and what you aim to achieve through media communications. This may include increasing brand visibility, driving website traffic, generating leads, or promoting a specific product or service. 2. Identify the target audience: Determine who your project's target audience is. Analyze demographics, psychographics, and behavior patterns to better understand their preferences, media consumption habits, and where they are most likely to engage with your message.
The next step is to identify who you want to reach with your media plan. Who are the key stakeholders, influencers, decision-makers, and beneficiaries of your project? What are their demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and preferences? How do they consume media, and what are their media habits and preferences? Segment your target audiences into different groups based on their characteristics and needs, and prioritize them according to their importance and potential impact.
Research different media platforms: Explore the various media channels available to reach your target audience. This may include traditional channels (TV, radio, print), online platforms (websites, blogs), social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), search engines (Google Ads), or other emerging channels relevant to your audience. 4. Set a budget: Determine how much you are willing to allocate for media efforts. Consider the cost associated with each media channel and prioritize the ones that will provide the best return on investment based on your project goals and target audience.
Audiences should ALWAYS come first, not second in developing a media plan for a project. Everything you do should ladder up to your audience outcomes and behaviors.
The third step is to develop the key messages that you want to convey to your target audiences. What are the main benefits, values, and solutions that your project offers? What are the unique selling points, differentiators, and stories that make your project stand out? How do you want your target audiences to feel, think, and act after hearing your messages? Craft your key messages in a clear, concise, and compelling way, and tailor them to each target audience group and media channel.
There are some ways to tailor the message also for example in my organisation when we were doing our rebranding, l made use of a jingle to convey key message to employees and stakeholders. Through the jingle we managed to connect employees to the brand and at the end employees used it to connect external stakeholders to the brand as-well.
The fourth step is to select the media channels that you will use to deliver your key messages to your target audiences. There are many types of media channels, such as owned, earned, paid, and shared media. Owned media are the channels that you control, such as your website, blog, newsletter, or social media accounts. Earned media are the channels that you gain through third-party endorsement, such as media coverage, reviews, or testimonials. Paid media are the channels that you pay for, such as advertising, sponsorship, or influencer marketing. Shared media are the channels that you co-create or leverage with others, such as partnerships, collaborations, or user-generated content. Choose the media channels that best suit your objectives, target audiences, key messages, and budget, and mix them in a balanced and integrated way.
Selecting media channels involves understanding the target audience's habits and setting clear project objectives. Researching various options such as TV, radio, print, digital, and social media helps assess their reach, effectiveness, and cost. Evaluation of channel fit considers alignment with the target audience and project goals. Budget allocation is crucial, prioritizing channels based on relevance and potential impact. Testing and measuring selected channels allow for performance evaluation and adjustments based on results. Continuous optimization considers audience feedback, and performance metrics.
The selection of media channels hinges on several factors like the TA's preferences and preferred sources of information. I have found that adopting an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Approach offers a host of advantages in most cases. Broader outreach, a consistently delivered core brand message, heightened engagement, message reinforcement, amplified impact, & access to profound insights - to name a few. Crucially, the IMC approach also capitalizes on the strengths inherent in diverse platforms, leading to a more comprehensive brand communication strategy. This, in turn, enables engagement with the audience across multiple touchpoints, significantly improving the prospects of cultivating an enduring and impactful brand presence.
The fifth step is to create a media calendar that outlines when and how you will execute your media plan. A media calendar is a tool that helps you to plan, organize, and coordinate your media activities across different channels and platforms. It helps you to align your media plan with your project timeline, milestones, and events, and to avoid conflicts or overlaps. It also helps you to assign roles and responsibilities, track progress, and manage resources. You can use a spreadsheet, a software, or a template to create your media calendar, and update it regularly as your project evolves.
The last step is to monitor and evaluate your media plan to measure its effectiveness and impact. Monitoring is the process of collecting and analyzing data and feedback from your media activities, such as reach, impressions, engagement, conversions, or sentiment. Evaluation is the process of assessing and reporting on how well your media plan met your objectives, and what lessons and recommendations you can draw from it. You can use various tools and methods to monitor and evaluate your media plan, such as analytics, surveys, interviews, or case studies, and use the results to improve your future media plans.