Common Perceptions About Media Buying in Malaysia
When it comes to media buying, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Throughout our years of experience as Advertising Specialists in Malaysia, we have seen that the one-size-fits-all approach to marketing no longer works. These days, it’s important to craft precise and personalized marketing strategies to target the specific audience segments for your brand.
Another misconception that most brands have about media buying is that it means selling a product or service. On the contrary, media buying is actually part of the bigger picture in the overall media planning process. As we will explore further in this article, we will share how media buying is one of the key strategic moves for your business.
One of the questions we often get from clients is: “Can we buy this media placement first and secure more advertising placements in the future?”. Since media buying is part of the entire media planning strategy, it only makes sense that the media buying strategy should be laid out in its entirety before executing the advertising buys. Media buying is an intricate process that requires a proper workflow to ensure its success.
With that said, we hope to debunk the myths and misconceptions about media buying in Malaysia through this article. At its core, media buying has 3 key objectives:
- Brand Awareness
- Market Penetration
- Brand Status
For a marketing campaign to be really successful, it takes more than just coming up with an advertising budget and just rolling out the advertisements while expecting great results. Before launching any marketing campaign, there needs to be a solid marketing plan.
Who better to consult for crafting a successful marketing campaign than an Advertising Specialist? An Advertising Specialist’s role is to be responsible for the media planning and executing media buys on behalf of brands.
What is Media Buying?
Broadly speaking, media buying is the strategic process of identifying suitable ad placements on various platforms for the purpose of fulfilling the marketing objective based on the advertising budget allocated.
Through media buying, brands are able to market their campaigns across multiple platforms, which includes both traditional and new media.
The ultimate goal of media buying is to deliver the right ads, to the right target audience at the right time.
In order to generate the maximum awareness and reach out to as many people as possible, the media buying process includes the process of purchasing ad space on various mediums such as broadcast media, publications, websites and out-of-home media, among others.
Since there are various platforms involved in the process of media buying, it only makes sense that media buyers approach each media buying process using different tactics.
This is to ensure the highest chances of securing the chosen advertising placements. Generally, there are two main methods of media buying:
- Programmatic Buying
As the name suggests, programmatic media buying is the process of buying using automated technology such as leveraging on AI and algorithms to conduct real-time bidding on the desired ad placements.
- Direct Buying
For this method of media buying, it requires the media buyer to deal directly with the relevant publishers to work out the desired ad rates, ad specifications and ad run-time for each specific campaign.
The Media Buying Process
Hiring an Advertising Specialist can ease the intricate media buying process while ensuring that your media plan achieves the objective that you wish to achieve.
There are three main stages in the media buying process, mainly the Pre-Launching stage, Campaign Launch stage and Post-Launch stage.
Pre-Launching Stage
Being the core of every media plan, a lot of research goes into the preparation to ensure that the media placements chosen are able to fulfil the marketing objectives.
- Identify
One of the first things to consider in the pre-launching stage of the media buying process is to identify the target audience and the best ways to reach them. Information such as the audiences’ demographics and buyer behaviours will help immensely when it comes to deciding on suitable media placements in order to reach these people.
- Research
Next, it is also vital to research the brand’s potential competitors to study their existing media buying strategies. Knowing what works, and what doesn’t work for the brand’s competitors helps to save time and cost while providing brands with insights to better optimize their media buying strategy.
- Strategize
Media buyers will then strategize the media buy based on the campaign goals. Depending on the budget and the campaign objectives, a media buyer can opt to focus solely on one media channel or procure ad spaces from different media owners.
- Select
Upon deciding on the suitable media placements and channels, media buyers will then have to discuss with publishers the right tools to use in order to maximize the advertising budget allocated. One of the benefits of hiring an Advertising Specialist is that most of them are media buyers who have years of experience dealing with media owners, hence, giving them the upper hand of knowing when to pick the right tools for the right job.
- Plan
Once media buyers have identified the target audience and the means to advertise to them, it is now time to start planning the campaign execution. Media buyers will prepare the budget estimates for each media buy and the prospective campaign results to help them track the actual results during the campaign launch stage.
Campaign Launch Stage
- Monitor
After having a media buying strategy in place, now is the crucial time where the campaign is launched. During this stage, media buyers will have to constantly monitor the campaign performance. This includes ensuring media delivery whereby the media buyer has to make sure that the advertisements appear at the agreed placements and at the right frequency.
- React
Another important aspect to take note of in the campaign launch stage is to react to the response received from the advertising campaign. Media buyers may have to make adjustments and changes to the advertisements if it does not receive the desired response. Since most campaigns span out for months, it is essential for media buyers to review and evaluate the media buying strategy periodically.
Post-Launching Stage
Finally, when the campaign ends, it is time for media buyers to analyze the overall campaign delivery and results to measure the effectiveness of the campaign. Media buyers will crunch the data and statistics provided by the media owners and generate reports to compare with the initial estimated results of the preparation stage. Based on the data collected, media buyers will be able to gain insights on the return on investment, audience interaction as well as possible errors to avoid in future campaigns.
Why Hire an Advertising Specialist?
As you may have gathered from the information outlined above, the media buying process is extremely tedious.
Appointing an Advertising Specialist will come in handy because they are highly experienced professionals with years of experience in the industry. Not only will they be able to advise your media buying decisions, but they will also serve as the point of contact between your brand and the media owners, ultimately saving you a lot of precious time and energy!
With years of industry knowledge and know-how, putting an Advertising Specialist in charge of your overall marketing plan will serve as a fail-safe approach to your business development. Especially for startup businesses, an Advertising Specialist can also double as a marketing consultant to advise you on the best practices of the industry.
Most Advertising Specialists have already established relationships built on years of trust with multiple media owners. Having connections with various media means that they are also equipped with tonnes of resources and options for media placements. This will definitely benefit your business because the Advertising Specialist is able to leverage their resources for cross-platform integration which can maximize your advertising spends.
One of the key benefits of engaging an Advertising Specialist is the fact that they can provide an unbiased perspective on your advertising strategies. Being an outsider looking in, they can propose out-of-the-box ideas which are vastly inspired by their years of dealing with brands from various industries throughout their careers.
Best of all, some Advertising Specialists are actually the pioneers of their own agencies, which means that they are equipped with extensive resources in the creative industry to provide you with value-added services. Instead of having to source for multiple vendors to manage different aspects of your marketing plan, hiring an Advertising Specialist comes with the full package of not only the expertise in media buying and media planning, but also have the liberty of leveraging on their content production team.
With that said, these are precisely the reasons why you should choose BIV Multimedia as your Advertising Specialist!
Having over a decade of experience in the media industry, we are one of the leading media buying agencies in Penang which have catered for various high profile clients such as SP Setia, Hunza Properties, EcoWorld, Camel and many more.
Through our unique offering of tailor-made solutions, we have successfully delivered multiple out-of-home campaigns for our clients nationwide. Our clients believe in us because we are known to provide cost-efficient solutions while exceeding expectations.
