The conventional approach to media has evolved over the last decade. In the past, you would have traditional agencies that focused primarily on linear media. Those agencies are very labor intensive with little to no technology. And as a result, media attribution was extremely difficult to measure. On the flipside, you would have digital agencies where media is treated like an outcome. While digital agencies are highly automated, they also severely lack strategic thinking. At Ansira, we pride ourselves on taking an integrated approach where we focus on the holistic consumer journey, strategy, and execution. We marry high-tech with skilled labor which allows us to achieve successful outcomes, customized for our clients’ needs. The success of these cross-channel, integrated, media campaigns can only be highlighted with end-to-end reporting and insights across all channels. Those insights are then used to further expand or pivot the cross-channel media strategy.
Developing a strategic media mix is crucial for optimal reach and engagement across channels. It’s important to focus on all types of media, and how they are interwoven into someone’s media day. With a true strategic media mix, it’s not about upper funnel and lower funnel, but how the individual engages with the medium. We no longer place media based on what the final outcome will be. Instead, it’s ideal to run campaigns fueled by market-specific customer data and place creative where it will have the highest impact. Then iterate, change, and adjust based on customer cycles.
We recommend the push and pull media approach to connect all marketing channels to build brand awareness, drive consumer loyalty, and increase actions. Push media is focused on a consumer who is an ideal customer but not yet showing signs of buying. Essentially, we are pushing your message out to consumers who are most likely to do business with you. This can include tactics like linear tv, terrestrial radio, streaming video, programmatic display, D/OOH, etc. Pull media, on the other hand, is focused on a consumer who is already interested in your brand, product, or service. We layer on intender, or 1st party data, to continuously pull these consumers back to your brand. This can include tactics like paid social, programmatic audio, and paid search.
The next step of an integrated, cross-channel media plan is to leverage data and insights to personalize campaigns. Data is extremely important within a strategic media approach. It’s critical to pull media consumption reports, technology use, and research behaviors to show ads in places where consumers are most active. We approach planning through immersion, discovery, and analysis by examining current and competitive customers, identifying critical message opportunities, and selecting channels that are target rich, measurable, and provide efficient frequency. This cross-channel media strategy creates repetition by providing multiple exposures to a message targeting a specific audience, which leads to conversions over time.
From there, we’re able to optimize consumer data to transform decision making, gain a better understanding of interests through data to granularly target consumers, create lookalike audiences, and focus on retention. Personalization can be further improved by identifying key messaging and value propositions for consumers. We recommend a test and learn approach to see what resonates with consumers, including promotions and value adds, depending on business goals. Implementing an audience first targeting approach with customized data segments will drive high engagement by finding the right consumer and delivering a personalized experience across the consumer journey.
There are several ways to optimize media performance. For example, you can choose to optimize your campaign within a single channel like paid search or display to increase ROI. Or you could optimize across 2+ channels to deliver maximum performance and efficiency. Another way is audience optimization which balances segment data against each other by moving budget towards top performing audiences. And lastly, there is the measurement and reporting behind each tactic. This level of deep analysis into key performance indicators (KPIs) and supporting data help to identify opportunities for continual testing and optimizations, which ultimately drives an increase in performance towards goals. Metrics we recommend measuring include year-to-date performance, media KPIs, goal tracking, trending and drilldowns, and budget tracking.
By approaching media through a strategic lens, you’re able to get to know your customers, develop personalized cross-channel plans, and activate media with real-time optimizations to drive the highest response. Success is dependent on outcomes of business goals and at Ansira, we immerse ourselves in our client’s business to ensure we’re all marching towards the same goal.
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