Over the past twenty years, as digital outlets evolved into what they are today, marketing decision-making has become increasingly complex. Consumers’ attention is split across a multitude of vehicles—gone are the days of bucketing your budget into TV, print and radio while feeling confident that your target customer is receiving your message. So, too, are established metrics to assess success. Now marketers are faced with distracted audiences, ever evolving and disruptive technology as well as identifying their own metrics.
Success depends on identifying the best way to attract your customers’ attention, and doing so with an efficient allocation of budget. While this may seem obvious, eMarketer shows that only 25% of brand marketers actually feel confident that they’ve created the optimal media mixes for their brand/products, while about 50% of media companies and ad agencies are confident in their budget distributions. These numbers seem low, but consider today’s fragmented media landscape. There are limitless technologies offering people seemingly infinite choices on how to consume content. How can you decide confidently where to spend, and how much?
Finding the right media mix will likely prove to be one of your biggest marketing challenges. The increasing number of channels available, pressure to increase exposure among them, attribution, evolving customer behaviors—these variables and more impact budget allocation. In the era of digital marketing, where we’ve seen massive growth both in terms of consumption and advertiser budgets, even businesses with modest spends should review and adjust accordingly.
While all current and future trends point towards advertisers increasing spend in digital channels, a recent Millward Brown Digital study dictates that “best-in-class” media allocations in an advertiser’s media mix will include a mix of website and content development, traditional and digital.
Steps to success:
Targeting – Do your due diligence to identify and target the right audience. Who are they? Where are they consuming media? When and where are they most likely to take your desired action?
Measurement – Set yourself up for success by ensuring you can prove ROI. Choose an attribution model and commit. Get stakeholders on board before your campaign launches.
Objectives & Goals – The right media mix depends primarily on your business goals. Do you want to increase brand awareness or conversions? Perhaps both? This will help pinpoint the optimal budget allocation per medium, as each varies in terms of KPIs.
Testing & Flexibility – Use media mix modeling tools. Test and optimize according to the best performing medium. Allow budget fluidity among tactics and be flexible.
Choose the Right Agency Partner – Choose an agency you trust with the expertise and tools to help push your business forward.
