If you've never had a media strategy, you may wonder what the benefits are for going that route. It's just buying ads, right? How strategic can you really get? Well, the clients we work with at McCulloch + Company have come to know the benefits of goal alignment and developing a comprehensive media strategy with tactics to reach prospects at every stage of the buyer's journey. They've seen how helpful it is to develop a strategy based on their marketing goals, target demographic, geography, creative asset availability, budget and many other factors. If you're not there yet, perhaps it's helpful to see what you're missing out on by not having a media strategy.

Brands that do not plan and place media strategically adversely affect their potential impact by:

1. Needlessly driving up advertising costs and cannibalizing available impressions. For certain tactics like SEM and Programmatic digital that are auction based, bidding on the same inventory for different locations means a brand is competing with itself without cause.  
2. Overspending on advertising as much as 30-50% depending on the media tactic. A professional media buyer can negotiate significant savings off of published rates and leverage spend for increased exposure.
3. Losing out on added value. This can represent up to 30-50% additional media impressions depending on negotiations and tactics.
4. Spending too much time on advertising. Aside from higher rates there are a lot of time inefficiencies by lacking a media strategy:  whether it is duplicate staff functions or uncoordinated efforts between brand locations.
5. Being reactionary with media tactics instead of strategic. Every media sales rep believes their offer is the best value for a brand. But a “good deal” is only good if it achieves the brand’s goals. Even a "cheap" ad is really expensive if it doesn't work. Speaking of ROI, without a media strategy you are also hurting your brand by...
6. Limiting insight into which ad investments work. Brands that take the time to develop a media strategy set goals to then track the advertising spend. Brands that don't have a way to track what’s working negatively impacts future advertising investment.
7. Decreased visibility and loss market share. With inefficiencies mentioned above regarding rate, added value, and time, the net effect is loss in exposure and potential sales for the brand.

And, this is just a partial list! There are many more benefits to developing a media strategy. If you'd like to learn more about how a media strategy may help your business grow, contact us today.