What Is The Future Of Media Planning?

With efficiencies like the use of purchase-based data and cookies, media planning isn’t what it used to be. Publishers are no longer an indispensable middleman, and consumers literally have brands at their fingertips. So what is the future of media planning, and where does audience planning come in? Watch as Michael Clark explains the benefits of audience planning, and how it can help you reach consumers in more impactful ways. From customized messages that resonate more deeply, to consolidated tactics that maximize your media investments, get ahead of the curb with the help of audience planning tools. Because nothing helps you reach your audience like getting to know it well.

Video Transcript

“For us right now, media planning is dead. Most of our clients are focused on audience. And if you think about how digital media has evolved, it makes a lot of sense. Historically, media planning has been the art and science of connecting with consumers through proxies such as publishers. Today, anyone involved with digital media knows that you can get to consumers without the use of these proxies through the use of audience techniques that are really based on identity. Whether it be cookies, purchase-based data, or other second party partnerships, you can get to consumers without the use of these proxies, and as such media planning has fallen by the wayside.

Today, due to the incredible consolidation of consumer attention, particularly in digital around a few platforms (Facebook, Google, and Amazon), you’re going to have fewer elements within your overall plan. I think that’s a bit disquieting for a lot of marketers. It’s almost as though they can’t believe they can reach their entire audience through three platforms. But when you look at the reach of something like Google, or Facebook, or Amazon, most clients are hard pressed to exhaust their budgets within those three platforms before looking to other tactics.

You’re not going to have a dozen websites or a dozen print publications anymore; you’re probably going to have a couple of big universal platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. Then the question becomes ‘well, isn’t everyone on those platforms? How are you going to differentiate yourself?’ The answer is, of course. This is where audience planning comes into play: you’re looking very closely at the-purchase based data, the values, the attitudinal, and the behavioral data of audiences that are going to be valuable to you. That is going to be the differentiator. Because you can get to audiences through these large platforms in a very specific and a very efficient way. And where the benefit comes to marketers and clients that we’re working with is in taking ownership of audience planning, defining those audiences that work best for your brand, and defining them in such a way that those audiences are proprietary to you, the marketer.”

Want to learn more about audience planning, and how it can help with your business goals? Get in touch today!