[Business Post]
The Media buying profession involves choosing the right media channel for marketing a certain product. A media buyer’s role is demanding and involves him/her to be well versed with the target audience. The profession of a media buyer revolves around a commercial, or newspaper ad or any other sales message that is to be viewed by the intended audience. A variety of challenges are often faced in making the advertisement effective and one of the major ones is deciding which media channel to use and how much of it. The media could be a newspaper, a magazine, TV, radio or the internet. In newspapers and on the radio, the advertising revenue is the maximum and requires much more planning and skills than when advertising recruiters on the web.
Identifying The Challenges In Recruiting A Media Buyer
Advertisers are increasingly recognizing the potential and significance of strategic media buying for their sales campaign. The overarching need for talent is communicated and displayed by ad agencies in full force over job-seeking websites and platforms. On the scale of 3, advertisers rated the possibility of accessing the best talent at 2.5, however, ad agencies rated it 2.3.
The profession of media buyers is relatively new and unconventional. Previously, the task of choosing a specific media or understanding the combination of media channels was performed by either the marketer themselves or by the marketing automation executive. It is challenging for the advertisers to convince executives about a skilled media buyer and how their inclusion can improve the efficiency of the organization. “Moving buying in-house is not a simple process, and the truth is that there are many questions that those brands that take this step will have to answer,” said Susy Pyzer-Knapp, a consultant at ID Comms. She continues by saying “The biggest of these will be how they attract the talent they need to ensure they have access to the best tools and smartest trading strategies.”
Trends In Media Buying Industry
As another trend as well as a challenge, the Association of National Advertisers has pointed out on the non-transparent practices adopted by media buyers in deriving data through crawlers and unethical means is coming into notice. One of the difficulties in recruiting an in-house media buyer is to understand that the responsibility for any type of data theft or unethical means of obtaining space over the web will have severe consequences for the media agency and diminish its presence in the media buying industry.
Previously, advertising firms would outsource such tasks to media buying agencies. The outsourced media buying organization would prove to be better negotiators and consultants than conventional marketers. However, the trend now points towards hiring an in-house media buyer as that proves to be more cost-effective for the advertising agency. An in-house media buyer is also liable to various confidentiality clauses relating to client information and creative inputs of the ad campaign. Leading professional association for in-house agencies – The In-House Agency Forum caters to over 250 marketers such as Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Harley-Davidson. Organizations such as this are thriving in the advertising and multi-media market and are helping in-house media buyers integrate with the existing operational setup in the ad agency.
Media Buyer And The Preferred Qualities They Are Expected To Have
With the advent of technology that pulsates on the data recovered from online accounts, any digital marketer can understand the demographics and psychographics of the target audience for the client and the prepared ad or PR campaign. It is, however, with great precision and knowledge that the media buyer understands the compatibility of the prepared content with the media channel. It is imperative to match the grammar and technicalities of the media channel with the type and treatment of content (textual or multimedia).
A significant portion of the media buying industry professionals recognizes advertisers who treat media buying as a “quality buy” instead of limiting it to a “commodity buy”. It may be easy to buy media channels at a cheap price, but the challenge is to buy the correct and most effective media channel.
Advertisers need media buyers who pay ultimate focus on Key Performance Indicators or KPIs. KPIs are operated in the evaluation phase of the campaign and reportage of them in the evaluation presentation helps the ad agency justify its choice of media channels on the basis of how many people were exposed to the message.
More than a few hurdles cloud the recruitment process of a media buyer. While the aspirant aims to have a sound knowledge of the upcoming technologies involving data mining, the advertising agency is responsible to maintain perfect synchronization of the recruit with the daily operations.
