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" When
deciding on the media source, use common sense for
your demo and concentrate more on reaching this audience
in a cost-effective way."
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Written by Robert Westall; 07/01/04
If you're a wizard, you already know that the three sacred
cows of advertising are dead. If not, then please continue
reading... and I'll explain the fallacy behind the cows and
how this relates to your business, and ultimately--your bottom
line.
Demographic marketing: This is targeting a specific media
source based on a pre-determined demographic. The theory
sounds simple enough, but many times people over-analyze,
and usually paralyze their advertising. For instance, I've
had clients buy a certain station or channel because of their
personal preferences. Try to imagine running Volkswagen ads
on a sports talk station, not because this is the VW audience,
but because you listen to sports talk. Sounds ridiculous,
doesn't it?
The fact is that people don't make buying decisions in a
vacuum. People are people, and some brands have a wider demo
than others. When deciding on the media source, use common
sense for your demo and concentrate more on reaching this
audience in a cost-effective way.
Gross rating points: By definition, GRPs are the summation
of the overall rating points for the campaign. What does
that tell you? Not much. Using this strategy, there is no
way of measuring how many people you've hit or how many times
you've hit them. And ultimately, you can't manage what you
can't measure. If you want to move the needle, focus on the
reach and frequency of the schedule.
I've heard people say, "Radio is a frequency medium." I
agree with that, but let me expand. I think marketing is
a result of proper frequency, regardless of the medium. Frequency
with the right message can be like steroids for your media
buy. If you're confused now, let me ask you this question:
Would you rather convince 100% of your audience 10% of the
way to your store, or 10% of your audience 100% of the way
to your store? Your answer to this question will tell me
if you need to market or advertise.
Media mix: In the old days, we had three TV channels, four
radio stations, and one local newspaper... and you had to
actually get up off the couch, walk across the room, and
physically turn the knob to change the channel. If you ran
a schedule across the board and put a little money everywhere,
chances were that you could reach the same audience multiple
times through a media mix.
Now days, we've got Internet banners, spam and pop-ups,
dozens of radio stations formatted to specific demos, six
or seven broadcast stations in almost every market, and literally
hundreds of cable stations split between multiple providers
and various satellite dish networks--all at our fingertips.
Have I mentioned all the print publications we can now choose
from?
Here's the point: media mix assumes frequency by hitting
the same audience through multiple media sources. And with
today's media being more fragmented than ever, it is imperative
that dealers don't spread their ad dollars too thin. How
many mediums are you in? Is your spending enough to effectively
cover all of those areas?
