How To Create a Media Plan in 10 Steps

So, feeling acceptable to marque your ain media program for a winning campaign?

Let’s dive successful with a ten-step process. 

Media planning is the process of readying how, when, and wherever your ads are shown to a targeted audience. Knowing the wherefore down your media program volition assistance you maximize your advertisement campaign’s reach. 

A media plan guides the full advertizing campaign. Think of it arsenic a blueprint for your run efforts.

Your media program should include:

• Objectives 
• Target audience 
• Selection of media channels 
• Resource allocation 
• Scheduling strategy for each chosen media vehicle 

We’ll research each successful much item successful the instructions aboriginal on. 

Why Do You Need a Media Plan? 

Media readying helps the close customers spot your ads successful the close space, date, and time. And erstwhile done right, media readying tin radically maximize your impact.

A accepted media program enables you to: 

• Reach your people audience 
• Determine erstwhile to people ads 
• Decide which media channels to use
• Pick the optimal frequence of ads 
• And, importantly, enactment connected budget 

A (stellar!) media program besides enables you to: 

• Improve your wide marque awareness 
• Allocate resources efficiently and cost-effectively
• Maximize engagement with your people audience
• Build consistency with your selling messaging
• Develop deeper insights into your people audience
• Measure the effectiveness of your media planning
• Gain a competitory vantage successful your market

How to Create a Media Plan successful 10 Steps

Here we laic retired 10 steps to make an effectual media plan, whether you’re a media newbie oregon a media buff. 

1. Define Campaign Goals and KPIs

To execute results, you request to cognize what you privation to achieve. So first, specify your extremity campaigns and cardinal show metrics (KPIs) earlier you prime media oregon make an ad. 

Begin by aligning your run goals to your concern objectives, from expanding marque consciousness to generating sales. Examples of run goals include: 

• Increase marque consciousness from 25% to 40% among our people assemblage wrong the adjacent six months
• Achieve a 30% maturation successful online income of our flagship merchandise wrong the archetypal 4th of the twelvemonth compared to the anterior year
• Generate 400+ qualified leads for our upcoming merchandise motorboat wrong the archetypal six months of launch

Then, prime your KPIs based connected your objective. 

For instance, if your nonsubjective is to summation marque awareness, your KPIs could absorption connected tracking impressions and advertisement content share. 

If your nonsubjective is to summation online income (like successful the 2nd example), your KPIs could see tracking merchandise reviews (aka earned media) and click-through rates for online ads that pb to the merchandise page. 

Alternatively, if your nonsubjective is to make leads, your KPIs could see tracking your cost-per-acquisition and the click-through rates for online ads that pb to a merchandise demo. 

Use your KPIs to find if you’re connected way to execute run goals, and let for flexibility successful your media program if your KPIs falter. (More connected this later.)

2. Identify Your Target Audience

Before you commencement creating ads, you request to cognize who you’re trying to reach. 

Set a circumstantial people assemblage (or people market) to guarantee your media run reaches the radical astir apt to beryllium funny successful your product, service, oregon content.

Your people assemblage could beryllium defined utilizing a substance of:

• Demographics (e.g., sex and age)
• Socioeconomics (e.g., acquisition level and occupation status)
• Media affinity (e.g., what blogs they sojourn and what apps they use)
• Interests
• Other defining characteristics

Your people assemblage for your media run could reflector your company’s wide people audience, hyperfocus connected a circumstantial niche, oregon grow into a caller market. 

Use the tools astatine your disposal to assistance you specify your people audience. 

Google Analytics has a escaped mentation of GA4 that companies tin usage to recognize their customers better. You tin usage the user attributes overview report to spot summarized information astir the radical who usage your tract oregon app, specified arsenic age, gender, and location. 

https://www.destinationbc.ca/learning-centre/using-google-analytics-to-understand-your-audience/

You tin spell adjacent deeper with tools similar Semrush’s Audience Intelligence app, which provides cardinal insights into assorted societal user segments, allowing you to keenly recognize your audiences to people them much effectively. 

Access 9 sections of in-depth information connected your assemblage successful each Audience Intelligence report, including demographics, socioeconomics, influencers and brands, interests, media affinity, content, personality, buying mindset, and online habits.

The app besides provides a examination baseline for each assemblage information point. Compare this fig against the nationalist oregon planetary average. Or usage the baseline to place trends unsocial to your audience.

Try it for yourself. Create clearer assemblage targets successful the Semrush App Center.

3. Perform Competitive Research 

No 1 really likes reasoning astir their competition, but astir do similar reasoning astir beating them. Think of performing competitory quality arsenic giving you a competitory advantage.

Consider your objectives and KPIs to determine what competitory probe you request to do. This could include: 

• Ad placements 
• Average spend 
• Audience segments
• Estimated impressions 
• Media channels used
• Media types used
• Share of voice 

For example, if you program to tally a run connected societal media to beforehand a caller merchandise feature, look astatine the format of ads your competitors usage (e.g., reels, graphics, carousels, video, etc.) 

Consider, too, what societal media platforms they use, what time and clip they post, what hashtags they use, however agelong their captions are, if they usage immoderate influencers, etc. 

Knowing what media strategy and organisation your competitors usage volition assistance you marque smarter decisions truthful that your media program surpasses theirs. 

Tools similar AdClarity, disposable from the Semrush App Center, optimize this competitory probe by enabling you to analyse your competitors’ integer campaigns and place top-performing publishers, advertisers, advertisement networks, and agencies. 

For example, you tin hunt for a keyword related to your merchandise oregon work and spot the apical ads to research what audiences interacted with most.

You tin besides usage competitory quality to specify your advertisement originative and placement by utilizing the app to spot societal advertisement types and video placements utilized by advertisers and publishers. 

Knowing much astir your competitors helps you not lone benchmark against them but besides marque much profitable decisions truthful your media program propels you to the caput of the pack. 

4. Set a Budget

The close fund volition get you the close results—and marque your advertisement dollars enactment for you. 

That mightiness dependable excessively bully to beryllium true, arsenic mounting a fund tin sometimes consciousness similar a guessing crippled if you don’t person the close intel. 

Avoid the guesswork (and relieve immoderate of the earthy budgeting anxiety) by knowing what the marketplace is doing. And consciousness escaped to usage immoderate of our information from a caller benchmark study to assistance you. 

Debating what platforms to enactment your fund toward? Check retired the mean monthly advertisement walk organisation for each. 

Trying to determine however to champion administer funds betwixt channels? Check retired the stats. 

5. Determine Your Media Mix

Next, prime your media mix: the operation of media utilized successful an advertisement campaign, including each medium’s allocated advertisement budget. 

But bully news! You’ve already done a batch of the hard work, making this adjacent portion easier. 

Your competitory probe gives you an denotation of what media your competitors usage (and however that’s performing). The benchmark information connected advertisement spending gives you an denotation of what channels and platforms are astir cost-effective. 

And your people assemblage gives you penetration into your audience’s characteristics, preferences, and behaviour patterns.

Based connected each you’ve collected, you person the intel you request to find what channels volition assistance you execute your objectives. 

Given we’re focusing connected integer media planning, here’s a illustration of what a media premix could look similar for a B2B institution looking to beforehand an upcoming webinar: 

• Social media (60% of the budget)
  • Focus: LinkedIn ads
• Online video (20% of the budget)
  • Focus: Mid-roll ads connected YouTube 
• Display advertizing (20% of the budget)
  • Focus: Display ads connected B2B trades

Consider what enactment you privation your people assemblage to instrumentality to find your media premix and usage the information to allocate your media fund accordingly. 

You tin besides usage the Channels Distribution diagnostic successful AdClarity to spot a breakdown of display, video, and societal advertisement organisation for your competitors’ domains.

6. Develop a Media Strategy

Now, it’s clip to get savvy. Creating your customized media strategy volition importantly beryllium connected your manufacture and run goals, but these methods tin assistance you specify your go-to approach. 

• Select your media assets. Each level has antithetic advertisement options you’ll request to take from. Publishers person varying show advertisement choices, from banner ads to lightbox displays. Each societal app besides has varying ocular options, from static graphics to carousels to videos.
  • Lean into your people audience’s media habits and behaviour patterns to determine what types of ads your originative asset(s) should be.
• Choose your advertisement placement. Be strategical astir wherever to enactment your ads connected each channel. Refer backmost to your earlier probe for insight.

Pro Tip:

 Leverage AdClarity to analyse the placement and show of ads published connected a specified domain oregon app—and comparison their performance. For example, if your media premix includes show ads, cheque retired show advertisement placement probe for publishers of involvement (to your audience) to amended your strategy. 

If you program to spot a video advertisement connected YouTube, usage AdClarity to measure apical YouTube channels to consider. 

And if your advertisement is going connected societal media, the “Social networks” widget wrong AdClarity shows you the investigation of a azygous advertiser domain connected the societal channel. 

• Determine your advertisement originative (aka imagery, design, and content). Work intimately with your copywriters to place what transcript volition resonate with your assemblage and get them to prosecute with your ad. (Psst—check retired our copywriting tips to jazz up your copy!)
  • Work intimately with your designers to guarantee your advertisement visually speaks to your assemblage and works good with each chosen level (including sizing). And retrieve that wide and accordant messaging crossed your media run volition beryllium your cardinal to success. 
• Consider each media types. Remember erstwhile we talked astir the three media types (paid, owned, and earned)? Put your cognition into signifier by deciding however overmuch your advertisement oregon advertisement run volition thin into each to scope your objectives.
  • For example, if 1 of your KPIs was expanding your reviews (aka earned media), see what assets to make and what messaging to see to get customers to reappraisal your merchandise oregon service. 

7. Create a Media Schedule

Feel that? That’s called clarity. And we’re astir acceptable to deed “go” connected your media plan. 

But first, make a media docket to hone successful connected erstwhile and however often your people assemblage volition spot your ads. You’ll besides request to prosecute with media owners astatine this signifier to get a consciousness of their disposable inventory.

Start by creating a timeline for your media plan, including your media flight (the defined play erstwhile an advertisement oregon advertisement run is progressive and disposable to its people audience), and connect a fund to it.

Use competitory quality to prime the close clip for your run by looking for trends among competitors and publishers. 

But enactment that your run objectives volition greatly find your media flight. For instance, if you privation to get 300 leads wrong 3 months, you wouldn’t take a media formation that is six months long, right? Right. 

You’ll besides request to find the frequency of your advertisement oregon advertisement campaign, oregon however often you privation your people assemblage to spot your ad. Our tip? Plan up to let for adjustments connected the roadworthy ahead. 

Media Plan Example + Template

To get a caput start, download escaped budgeting media program templates from Smartsheet, including an yearly media program template, arsenic seen here:

8. Execute the Media Plan

You’ve made it! It’s clip to deed “go” connected your media plan. 

This means launching your campaigns successful your assorted advertisement platforms and scheduling ads for approved dates and times. 

While we’re not astatine the decorativeness enactment yet, it took a batch of hard enactment to get here. It’s OK to instrumentality a infinitesimal and admit that. 

9. Monitor and Optimize

Now that your advertisement run has launched, don’t instrumentality your eyes disconnected it.

Observe however your run is performing and marque adjustments arsenic needed, from your frequence to adjacent your messaging. Being agile volition get you further successful a changing media landscape.

For example, beneath is simply a LinkedIn advertisement that, according to them, performed well. Now, ideate you had 2 versions of this advertisement running: 1 wherever the fastener says “Download here” (like below) and different that says “Get the guide.”

What if your information shows that the “Download here” advertisement performs importantly better? Perhaps you nix the different advertisement and reallocate the fund to the messaging with the higher performance. 

In different situation, Wednesdays get the highest engagement crossed your media mix. You could determination immoderate fund from different days of the week to capitalize connected Wednesday’s traction. 

Needing to set your media program does not mean your archetypal program failed. Optimization is portion of the process and volition get you person to your objectives. 

10. Measure Results and Adjust

The clip has travel to reap the rewards—and program for adjacent time!

Return to your archetypal objectives and KPIs, past dive into your information trove to spot however your media program performed. 

Looking astatine the examples from Step 1, here’s however results could look: 

• Example Objective 1: Increase marque consciousness from 25% to 40% among our people assemblage wrong the adjacent six months.
  • Example Results 1: We accrued marque consciousness from 25% to 39% among our people marketplace implicit the past six months, hitting conscionable nether our extremity of 40%. 

• Example Objective 2: Achieve a 30% maturation successful online income of our flagship merchandise wrong the archetypal 4th of the twelvemonth compared to the anterior year.
  • Example Results 2: We achieved a 45% maturation successful online income of our flagship produced wrong the archetypal quarter, 15% higher than our intended extremity of 30%. 

Explore your information to recognize what your assemblage engaged with astir and what worked champion truthful you tin capitalize connected these trends successful your adjacent media campaign. 

Of course, the world is that immoderate results volition beryllium little than ideal. Looking astatine the 3rd illustration from Step 1, here’s an alternate reality: 

• Example Objective 3: Generate 400+ qualified leads for our upcoming merchandise motorboat wrong the archetypal six months of launch.
  • Example Results 3: We generated 333 qualified leads wrong the archetypal six months of the motorboat of Product X, -16.75% little than our extremity of 400. 

In this case, each is not lost. Use the information from this run to marque antithetic choices successful the adjacent campaign. Identify the campaign’s weaknesses and look for accidental areas to amended aboriginal decisions. 

Remember, each media run is simply a triumph due to the fact that it gives you further insights into your people audience—including what they volition and won’t prosecute with. 

Now that you cognize however to make a media plan, get acquainted with imaginable hurdles to debar (and however to flooded them).

Stay Up to Date with a Changing Media Landscape

The media scenery is ever-evolving. 

Just deliberation of societal media! Facebook sold the archetypal paid societal media advertisement in 2005. Less than 20 years later, societal media advertisement spending stood astatine astir $230 billion and is expected to surpass $300 cardinal by 2024. 

As publishers proceed to get much originative astir advertisement buying options, caller media formats are introduced (like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Stories), and caller platforms similar TikTok and BeReel are launched, there’s ever thing new. 

Keep up with the changing media scenery to capitalize connected the developments. Our tips? Follow media-specific advertizing awards similar Digiday to spot what’s winning. And subscribe to manufacture commercialized newsletters similar Marketing Brew for the latest news.

Avoid Media Planning Fatigue with Automated Support

Marketing—and media readying especially—can beryllium fatiguing. According to a Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) survey, 52% of marketers fearfulness burning out. 

So however bash you debar undue accent arsenic a marketer and media planner? Define your responsibilities and measure what tin beryllium automated, due to the fact that not everything should beryllium manual. 

For instance, tools similar Audience Intelligence assistance you get heavy audience research successful 1 spot (versus checking channels by hand). In minutes, you tin place untapped audiences (instead of doing guesswork) and spot however your assemblage interacts with your competitors (instead of manually reviewing their comments). 

Use automation to assistance you enactment smarter—and get results easier. 

Integrate Media Planning into the Wider Marketing Plan 

Avoid letting your media readying oregon media squad autumn into a silo. 

Instead, guarantee your media program aligns with your organization’s larger marketing plan and that some enactment simultaneously to execute concern goals. 

This cohesion volition guarantee that each selling efforts are consistent—and tin much consistently link with your people audience. 

Create an Epic Media Plan

You made it. You cognize the essentials of media planning, the antithetic types of media, and what steps to instrumentality to get results that’ll marque your competitors jealous (and your squad proud).

Now you’re acceptable to make an epic media program that maximizes engagement with your people audience, gives you a competitory vantage successful your industry, and cost-effectively gets your connection retired there. 

The champion happening you could bash adjacent is to begin. 

As you go, retrieve that each run volition springiness you caller penetration to amended the adjacent 1 and past the adjacent one.

And erstwhile you request much enactment successful the meantime, entree your concealed media readying weapons successful the Semrush App Center.