On Wednesday, we discussed three more reasons that you probably want to use a media buying services agency. If you missed parts one and two, be sure to check them out!Here are the last 3 in the series.
7. Free Stuff – No, I”m not talking about the free tickets that advertisers get. I”m talking about free placements. Often, media buyers will negotiate additional free advertising into the contract. Not only that, but with posting, we find that our clients often get lots of ads that they would have missed out on if they had been placing their media themselves.
8. Much Less Work – 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.
9. Media 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 buyer knows all of your placements; they know your targets. Instead of ordering a buy based on open inventory (that”s the word that TV stations use for commercial slots), a buy is based on what you need.
I hope that you have found the Nine Reasons to Use a Media Buying Services Company useful. Of course, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post below or send me an email.
On Monday, we discussed the first three reasons that you probably want to use a media buying services agency. Without further adieu, here are reasons 4-6.
4. Posting – When you buy television advertising, you are buying based on the estimated number of people that might see your spot. What happens if you pay based on a million viewers and only half a million viewers tune in? It happens all the time. A good media buyer will review the ratings to make sure that you have gotten all of the eyeballs that you paid for. This can be huge benefit if you haven”t been getting all that you have purchased. As a matter of fact, in 2008 we were averaging about 20% under-delivery in our market. This isn”t the fault of the television station, but they aren”t going to point out under-delivery either.
5. One Contact – I was just talking to a potential client about our buying services, and I mentioned that any media salesperson that calls should be forwarded to us. As you might guess, he was very excited. When you work with a media buyer, you only work with your buyer – meaning, you don”t have to take all those media calls from sales reps.
6. Avoid Accounting Hassles – No matter how hard you plan, television advertising billing fluctuates and is sometimes incorrect. With a media buyer, 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.
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.
1. 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 hand, real buys often are complex with multiple stations.
2. 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.
3. 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.
