Engage Customers With An Aligned Media Strategy

Communication, creative and media strategies should not be treated independently

Editor’s note: This is the last in a four-part series. In part three, we looked at product/target combination that would have the best chance of achieving our sales goals.

I think it-s a common misconception that communication, creative and media strategies are independent. I propose that we unify them into a single entity: a persuasion strategy.

So, how do we reach each group?

There is plenty of research that planners can draw from. They can be put into three groups:

• Desk research: whitepapers, public research and other similar sources
• Syndicated/omnibus research (Simmons, TGI, MRI, Scarborough, Geoscape, etc.)
• Own research (quantitative, qualitative)

And, naturally, while there is a perception that good qualitative research is expensive (and, therefore, many advertisers make do with qualitative research such as focus groups), there are alternatives such as online surveys that can give us flash readings of almost any variable we choose to examine.

For the sake of brevity, we’ll assume that we have enough research to understand our different targets well.

Finding the Channel Mix

There are many metrics to choose from, and no single metric can give us a definite picture. We can use ratings, impressions, time spent, watched yesterday, engagement indices, affinity indices, good old response (e.g., calling, clicking, cutting) and many more.

There are four very useful metrics/tools when approaching channel mix:

• Quintile analysis
• Over/under delivery analysis
• Channel mixers
• Communication evaluation