This is the second part of an article about media consultancy services offered by Media Audits. Here we will look at three groups of issues: how many media channels to use, the use of innovation and the qualification of staff. As a reminder, we only deal with these issues in the field of digital media and do not cover offline media. For a complete picture, we recommend reading the first part of the article first.
Choosing the number of media channels involves several questions: is it sufficient to use only 2-3 channels (e.g. Facebook and Instagram or Google Search and GDN), should we ask the agency to use as many channels as possible, should we put all the budget in the best channel, etc. These questions often come from experience in non-digital media. Because there ('offline' media), increasing the number of channels is often a priority, limited only by the size of the available budget. Because the number of channels expands reach, and reach is often the most important objective of media planning in offline media. But in digital media, the logic is different and the number of channels is (usually) not a priority. More important is the effectiveness of the channel, which can be measured by direct response (then it is performance media) or by direct response-like indicators that show the audience's interest in your ad (e.g. clicks, likes, comments). The question then becomes, how much budget should be concentrated on a channel that delivers good performance? In this case, our advice is not to look at the overall reach of the channel, but at the reach of your advertising. And allocate budget until the marginal value of the added reach justifies the added budget. The most popular digital media often have a very high reach (60-70% of the total population per month), so it will often be worthwhile to allocate a large budget to these channels. The result of this action/strategy is that the number of your digital channels is quite small, say the same 2-3 channels. We would advise not to worry about this if the performance is good.
The group of questions on the use of innovation includes questions related to the new digital media channels that are constantly appearing on the market, which are said to be growing very fast and therefore seemingly need to be used to advertise there. The latest fad is TikTok, which is, of course, the talk of the town for a while now, even though it was only a few months ago that businesses in the European Union could officially advertise on it. Perhaps the new trend is now Threads (an alternative to Twitter/X being developed by Meta). But the specific names are irrelevant, because the point is always the same: do you need to keep up with the latest digital media trends? Our specific advice to clients is simple: no, you don't. And the argument is that new media do not have a clear and reliable advertising model at the start. And in the early days of a new digital channel, the priority is to attract and retain an audience, not to monetise it (through advertising). For example, it is only now, even a few years after TikTok's massive popularity, that the channel is starting to look more seriously at its advertising model. So our advice is not to follow fads as they are not linked to effective marketing.
The last topic of this article is staff qualifications, and here we are referring to questions from Media Audits' clients concerning the qualifications of staff working in the marketing department. More specifically, what are the core competences that staff need to have when planning (with or without an agency) digital media advertising. Unfortunately, it is not possible to answer this question by indicating the specific competences required. This is because the field of digital media is too dynamic. The practical advice we give is to continuously buy training specifically in the field of digital media advertising. Compared to an advertising budget, training costs little, the field is very dynamic and the investment in training is easily justified. And the most important tip for staff training in digital media is this: we always advise our clients to choose individual training, i.e. training that is exclusive to your staff, rather than group training with other companies workers. The key advantage then is that your employees can ask questions and discuss specific challenges in your business that would not be covered in a training session with employees from other companies. Because you don't want to share potentially confidential information. The best business training is business case analysis, and the best training is taught by the cases your employees face in their work. Look at such training as a synthesis of training and consulting, with the speaker doing some of the consulting.
In the two parts of this article, we look at what Media Audits does to advise on digital media issues. This covers six topics. In the first part, we look at conversion optimisation, operational implementation and the selection of a partner agency. In the second part, we look at the selection of the number of media channels, the use of innovation and the qualification of staff. The advice given applies to generalised cases and may not be effective enough for your specific business situation. We invite you to contact us for individual advice.