Mon 8 Mar 2010
The Nine Reasons to Use a Media Buying Services Company (part 1)
Posted by John T. Mims, APR under Advertising , Media Buying ServicesNo Comments | Trackback
Although this post might seem to be self-serving, many people that I run into when meeting new people are not experienced at buying media. Yet, more often than not, they set up their own ad buys and handle the media buying themselves. While this might be a wonderful educational experience, this, most often is a mistake in many ways. Often you end up wasting time and money.
I’ve come up with 9 reasons that you might want to use a media buying services company instead of forging ahead on your own. Look for parts 2 and 3 on Wednesday and Friday, respectively.
It Doesn’t Cost Anything – When you use a media buying services agency to buy radio and television, they are paid through an agency discount offered by the station. For example, let’s pretend that you want to buy an ad spot that costs $100. If you work directly with the station sales rep, that spot costs $100. If you were to call a media buyer, that ad would still cost you $100, but you wouldn’t have any of the headaches. The station gives the media buyer a price discount (typically 15%) that is only available to media buying agencies. So, although you pay the media services agency $100 on your ad, the buyer only pays the station $85. In our example, it might seem like overkill to introduce a buyer into the mix. If you were buying just one ad, you could probably do it yourself. On the other had, real buys often are complex with multiple stations.
Economies of Scale – Media buying services agencies often have quite a bit of influence – especially in local markets. Because media buyers typically have a few clients for which they are placing advertising, they can easily be one of the largest clients of the station. As you might guess, this has some real advantages when negotiating contracts.
More Experience – Most buyers will tell you that negotiating media buys is more art than science. A really good buyer understands the stations that she is buying. She knows how to create a compromise that helps both her client and the station. She also knows all of the tricks and traps that could cause problems with a buy. For example, did you know that if you negotiate a price that is too low that your spot will probably get bumped in favor of an advertiser that’s willing to pay more? Unfortunately, television stations have to bump spots all the time. Of course, there are ways to avoid this problem, but it takes some experience.
On Wednesday, look for the next 3 reasons to use a media buying service!
