Efficient media planning is essential for any enterprise to succeed right now.
Media content material — photographs, movies, written content material, and podcasts — retains you top-of-mind along with your target market and helps you stand out from opponents by making certain your model stays seen and interesting.
That is why I all the time advise shoppers to create and share recent media content material.
Nevertheless, preserving monitor of, planning, distributing, and analyzing all of your media content material can take effort and time. Efficient media planning helps you handle these duties effectively and keep a robust presence.
What’s media planning?
Media planning is the method of figuring out how, when, the place, and why your small business shares media content material along with your viewers. The method contains deciding what media can be shared and which channels you’ll use to spice up attain, engagements, conversions, and ROI, amongst different metrics.
Media planning has many shifting elements, making it difficult to grasp.
Nevertheless, by following the precise media planning steps and utilizing media planning templates, you may simplify the method and deal with any challenges that come your manner.
What’s a media plan?
A media plan particulars what sort of media you will create and the place and the way you will publish it to greatest interact and convert your viewers. Some media plans align with bigger firm initiatives and campaigns, following together with pre-approved messaging and content material.
Varieties of Media Plans
Choosing the proper kind of media plan relies on your marketing campaign objectives, price range, and the character of your services or products. However earlier than all that, that you must perceive the several types of media plans.
Steady Media Plan
A steady media plan entails a gentle run of adverts over a interval. That is greatest for services or products that are not seasonal and want fixed shopper reminders. Suppose: toothpaste or cleaning soap.
The thought is to make sure frequent publicity that retains your model top-of-mind all 12 months.
Flighting Media Plan
A flighting media plan alternates intervals of promoting with intervals of no promoting. Consequently, this facilitates high-intensity publicity throughout essential intervals, creating urgency and anticipation that results in extra income.
Opposite to steady media plans, it is good for seasonal services or products with fluctuating demand. For instance, an organization promoting vacation decorations may closely promote earlier than the vacation season and cease afterward.
Nevertheless, that you must know your model‘s peak occasions. Use instruments like HubSpot’s advertising analytics software program to investigate gross sales information throughout a number of advertising channels and accordingly modify your flighting intervals for optimum outcomes.
Pulsing Media Plan
A pulsing media plan combines steady and flighting plans, sustaining a gentle baseline stage of promoting with intervals of elevated depth.
I like this strategy for 2 causes: (1) it balances price range effectivity with sustained model consciousness in key markets, and (2) it is versatile and adaptable to altering market situations.
Seasonal Media Plan
A seasonal media plan focuses on particular occasions of the 12 months when a services or products is most related. This sort maximizes impression by aligning with peak demand intervals, creating robust associations with particular seasons or occasions, and being budget-friendly by concentrating on high-relevance intervals.
For instance, a journey firm can use seasonal media plans to advertise its trip packages. It will probably focus promoting efforts throughout winter and summer season, leveraging seasonal themes and promotions to make its campaigns extra interesting and related.
Roadblock Media Plan
A roadblock media plan locations adverts on a number of media channels concurrently to maximise attain and impression. For instance, when launching a brand new product, you may run the identical advert on TV, radio, on-line, and social media to rapidly generate buzz.
Consider it as synchronizing adverts throughout varied platforms — you create a robust, unified message that captures consideration and encourages quick response. Nevertheless, this strategy requires cautious planning and coordination to make sure all the things runs easily and successfully.
Drip Media Plan
A drip media plan steadily releases content material or adverts, identical to a sluggish, fixed drip. This strategy is ideal for instructional campaigns or nurturing leads over time.
As an illustration, in an electronic mail advertising marketing campaign for a B2B software program firm, we used a drip media plan. We despatched out worthwhile emails over a number of weeks, every tailor-made to handle particular ache factors and wishes. This fashion, each touchpoint added worth and introduced prospects nearer to a purchase order resolution.
The aim was to maintain our viewers engaged with common, useful content material. Over time, we constructed relationships and belief, which in the end led to conversions.
Advantages of Media Planning
Media planning aids with elements of content material creation and distribution, together with:
- Attending to know your target market on a deeper stage so you may successfully attain them via your media content material.
- Deciding on which media channels and platforms you’ll share your content material.
- Figuring out the timing and frequency of the media and content material you publish and share
- Maintaining with the most recent media developments and expertise.
- Sticking to your price range as you’re employed to create, publish, and share high-quality and interesting media content material.
- Conducting analyses to measure the success of your media planning course of.
Now that we’ve mentioned the advantages of media planning, let’s evaluate the steps within the media planning course of so you may start creating a technique for your small business.
Media Planning Course of
- Conduct market analysis.
- State your media planning goal.
- Create your media plan utilizing a template.
- Implement your media plan.
- Consider your success.
As you’re employed via the steps in media planning, understand that how your small business applies the outcomes and conclusions derived from every step can be distinctive primarily based in your viewers and wishes.
1. Conduct market analysis.
The very first thing I do when creating a media planning course of is conduct market analysis. This step permits me to tailor the content material and the media plan to my target market and clients.
Begin by creating and learning your purchaser personas. It is advisable to perceive who your target market and present clients are.
Then, with this info, decide what media will attain, resonate with, and convert your viewers greatest. Moreover, choose the platforms and channels you will use to publish and share your content material.
Featured Useful resource: HubSpot’s Market Analysis Equipment + Templates
2. State your media planning goal.
Subsequent, I all the time preserve a transparent aim in thoughts.
This helps me navigate the method successfully and guides me in deciding which content material sorts and platforms to concentrate on.
Having particular objectives permits me to confidently say “no” to choices that do not align with my marketing campaign’s aims.
Listed here are some examples of media planning aims you will have:
- Strengthen cross-team collaboration (e.g., content material, graphic design, animation, video, weblog, social media) whereas creating and sharing media.
- Improve and streamline the publication and distribution processes for all media.
- Enhance media distribution timeline to make sure our content material is shared effectively so it’s related to our target market.
- Amplify the success of our media content material by permitting for ample time to investigate its impression and attain our viewers.
As an illustration, let’s say you are planning your social media content material for Fb and Instagram. Your aim may be to streamline the content material creation course of and schedule your posts forward of time.
This fashion, you may guarantee your content material is all the time related and interesting, preserving your model prime of thoughts.
3. Create your media plan utilizing a template.
Now, it’s time to make your media plan.
I’ve discovered that it is not sufficient to easily plan after which assume everybody else is on the identical web page. It is advisable to define your technique via an in depth media plan. Once you do that, you guarantee alignment inside your staff and preserve all events accountable.
Some media plans can even function standalone methods that element how manufacturers plan to leverage media — written, video, audio, and so on. — to attach with followers and clients.
Media planning templates are invaluable in staying environment friendly and efficient whereas engaged on all features of media content material. They assist preserve all the things organized whereas publishing and sharing it along with your viewers.
Given the number of templates out there for various sorts and elements of the media planning course of, the templates you incorporate can be distinctive to your small business. Don’t be afraid to experiment with or mix totally different templates.
When considered one of HubSpot’s shoppers wanted to create a media plan for Fb and Instagram, our staff applied a social media calendar template for them.
Such a template helped coordinate content material throughout each channels, increase engagement, and enhance productiveness amongst staff members.
It in the end helped our shoppers obtain their aims sooner.
4. Implement your media plan.
Guarantee all events who ought to concentrate on the plan have the required particulars that will help you execute accordingly.
When our staff works on media plans, we all the time share the contact particulars of the media planning coordinator in our firm in order that anybody with questions or feedback is aware of precisely who to succeed in out to.
To get a greater understanding, let’s refer again to our instance of steps for a social media plan designed for Fb and Instagram.
After we applied a social media calendar template as a part of our consumer’s media plan, we made certain everybody concerned, whether or not on the artistic staff or the publication staff, had entry to it. This fashion, everybody was on the identical web page and will contribute successfully.
5. Consider your success.
Whether or not your media plan revolves round particular person posts on Instagram or a month-long, company-wide marketing campaign, it is essential to measure its success.
Ask your self and your staff questions like, “How did this media plan assist us obtain our particular objectives? If it didn’t, why?” and “How did the media planning templates and instruments we used add worth to our media creation and publication processes? In the event that they didn’t, how can we transfer ahead?”
The way in which you consider your media plan’s success ought to be instantly tied to the particular objectives of your small business relating to your media content material, the groups who create the media, and the worth you hope to derive from it (e.g., boosting conversions, engagements, income, and so on.).
As an illustration, when reflecting on previous campaigns, our staff usually evaluates whether or not our social media content material plan and calendar template helped the consumer attain their target market and obtain their desired aims.
We additionally assess whether or not our media plan boosted engagement on the consumer’s centered social platforms, consistently searching for methods to collaborate and coordinate extra successfully.
Media Planning Technique Elements
There are just a few extra issues to think about when crafting your media planning technique.
First, what’s your media planning price range?
Media Planning Funds
If you happen to’re aiming at no cost media, you may disregard this query. But when a part of your media planning entails media shopping for, sit down along with your advertising management to grasp what funds you need to work with.
Set this price range earlier than researching platforms and creating content material. You don‘t need to begin formulating a marketing campaign you can’t afford down the highway.
Professional tip: Embrace the prices of curating and distributing media kits in your price range in the event you plan on increasing media protection later. For inspiration, try our prime media equipment examples cherry-picked by Ramona Sukhraj, Principal Advertising and marketing Supervisor at HubSpot.
Second, take into account the important thing messaging factors you need your media to speak.
Media Planning Messaging
You do not have to pre-write all of your media content material, per se, however I like to recommend establishing the primary themes originally so all media is constant and on theme.
These messaging factors ought to come out of your viewers analysis and can information your content material sorts and platforms, so nail these down first.
Third, you want the media content material for publishing.
Media Scheduling Technique
A strong media scheduling technique enables you to create content material when inspiration strikes and fine-tune your promoting technique if you’re prepared. This protects you time in the long term.
Your scheduling technique will look totally different primarily based on the form of media you’re engaged on.
For instance, timing is all the things for social media posts (free or paid adverts). It is advisable to schedule your posts primarily based on when your target market is on-line, even when that point is inconvenient for you. Fortunately, there are a lot of instruments, resembling HubSpot’s social media administration software program, that may assist with this.
Then again, consistency is vital for newsletters and weblog posts. You need your viewers to be wanting ahead to your media content material, thereby boosting visitors and fostering a group round your model.
My prime ideas in your media scheduling technique embrace:
- Examine your readers and prospects to know once they’re out there on particular platforms
- Put together your content material in bulk to keep away from any inconveniences, resembling delayed deadlines, which can have an effect on your frequency
- Select the right automation instruments for every platform
- Be constant—consistency is all the things!
With these factors in thoughts, let’s stroll via tips on how to create a media plan of your individual.
How you can Create a Media Plan
1. Goal your purchaser personas.
As a marketer, you don’t need to promote to simply anybody. You need to entice the kind of purchaser who’s within the media you’re creating—in any other case often called your purchaser personas.
A purchaser persona is a semi-fictional illustration of your perfect buyer primarily based on market analysis and actual information about your current clients.
When you recognize precisely the kind of purchaser that you must goal along with your media plan, you may entice probably the most worthwhile clients to your small business.
When making purchaser personas, I usually heart them round these necessary attributes:
- Demographics: Age, revenue, location, or identification
- Background: Job, profession path, and life-style
- Identifiers: Communication preferences and social media platforms
- Targets: Main, secondary, private {and professional}
- Challenges: Their roadblocks stopping them from attaining their objectives
2. Outline your SMART objectives.
When setting objectives in your media plan, use the SMART objectives framework (Particular, Measurable, Attainable, Related, Time-Certain). This can show you how to monitor progress and obtain better impression.
Furthermore, establishing these objectives earlier than beginning ensures your media plan has a transparent course for you and your staff. It additionally means you may have fun your successes once they occur.
Some examples of SMART goal-setting in media planning might appear to be:
- Particular: “We need to generate a better variety of certified leads.”
- Measurable: “We would like our media plan to realize 2,000 followers throughout Twitter, Metaverse, and Instagram.”
- Attainable: “We beforehand reached 70% in buyer engagement on-line over the previous quarter, so we’re aiming for 75% within the subsequent.”
- Related: “We need to obtain extra constructive buyer engagement to raised the model’s status and achieve extra followers.”
- Time-Certain: “We would like our media plan to realize 2,000 followers within the subsequent three months throughout Twitter, Metaverse, and Instagram.”
When you’ve decided your objectives, begin exploring assets that may show you how to attain them.
3. Discover the media planning instruments greatest suited to you.
I‘ll share some unbelievable media planning templates for your small business later on this publish, however first, let’s discuss software program instruments that may do a number of the heavy lifting for you.
To begin, HubSpot Advertising and marketing Hub is ideal for drafting, planning, scheduling, and accumulating conversion analytics. However in the event you’re in search of extra choices, try our checklist of 15 important media planning instruments so that you can use.
4. Analyze historic information.
It’s important to know the place you started earlier than you can begin shifting ahead. I all the time look again at my earlier media planning methods to investigate their impression and attain.
For instance, in case your model is already on Fb, I’d examine the enterprise web page insights to see how far we bought with the outdated posting schedule and content material. I’d additionally have a look at the posts that bought probably the most engagement, the time intervals with the very best visitors, and the content material that helped flip prospects into clients.
By noting the efficient parts of your earlier technique, you may let that drive a few of your brainstorming in your new media plan. Consider it as constructing on previous successes.
5. Select your media combine.
In relation to selecting your media combine, it is necessary to remain knowledgeable about the preferred advertising channels, in addition to those most popular by your purchaser personas.
In response to HubSpot’s State of Advertising and marketing Report, over 1,400 world advertising professionals imagine the advertising channels with the very best ROI are:
- Web sites/Blogs
- Social Media
- E mail Advertising and marketing
- Content material Advertising and marketing
In my expertise, an omnichannel media plan works nice to succeed in your target market wherever they’re. By researching which channels your purchaser personas frequent probably the most and being open to exploring new ones, you may determine on the right combination in your model.
6. Put your media plan into motion.
When working in your media plan, control your insights and see how they stack up towards your SMART objectives. Keep in mind, you may all the time modify your plan as wanted. Advertising and marketing is a dynamic area, and having the ability to pivot is essential.
Now that you just‘re accustomed to making a plan, let’s have a look at some assets to make the media planning course of simpler.
Media Planning Templates
There are many media planning templates out there on-line, each for buy and at no cost. What I like about utilizing these templates is how customizable they’re; you may tailor them to suit your enterprise’s particular wants and objectives.
Relying on the media software program your small business makes use of, resembling HubSpot’s (free) CRM, Advertising and marketing Hub, or Sprout Social, there could already be customizable planning templates included. I’ve usually used HubSpot’s templates, which supply an awesome menu of choices to select from.
In fact, you can too create your individual templates utilizing Google Sheets. I’ve executed this myself, and it’s an effective way to make sure your planning course of suits completely along with your distinctive workflow.
No matter technique you select, do not forget that your media planning templates ought to evolve as your objectives and viewers develop. Don’t hesitate to regulate them over time to remain in sync with your small business’s altering wants.
Free Media Planning Template [Download Now]
Varieties of Media Planning Templates
This is an inventory of frequent media creation and planning templates to get you began. (Click on the hyperlinks to entry every template.)
Select the templates that fit your wants. Keep in mind, there‘s no proper or flawed alternative—it’s all about what works greatest for your small business.
- Use a media planning template to arrange your paid media efforts and bills in a single visible location.
- Use a social media technique template to align your media content material along with your viewers in a manner that gives worth for your small business.
- Use a social media calendar template to customise a timeline for if you’ll share your social media posts in a easy, organized, manageable, and efficient format.
- Use an editorial calendar template to plan and optimize all of the advertising content material you’ll publish and share, together with blogs, social media posts, and campaigns.
- Use a weblog publish template to easily fill within the blanks and start writing partaking, related, and well-optimized weblog content material in your viewers (all whereas avoiding author’s block!).
- Use an e book design template to take the guesswork out of tips on how to make your e book skilled, eye-catching, and delightful, all whereas saving your self worthwhile time.
- Use an infographic template in PowerPoint or Illustrator to rapidly customise the best way you current information, share insights, and promote presents in a manner that appears and feels skilled.
- Use an analytics and reporting template for Excel, PowerPoint, and Google Drive to make the processes of pulling, organizing, and sharing information easy regardless of which metrics you monitor.
- Use a price range template to handle and evaluate your spending and price range with Excel or Google Sheets.
- Use an promoting template that will help you plan and handle promoting campaigns in a manner that’s certain to transform viewers members into leads and clients.
Media Plan Examples
Though we’ve mentioned media planning and even shared just a few media planning templates, doing it virtually should pose a problem. Subsequently, I’ve created media plan examples and linked the templates I used for extra readability.
Social Media Plan
In relation to social media, focus your efforts on the platform the place your clients are lively. If you happen to’re nonetheless figuring that out, it’s nice to experiment with just a few platforms to see what works greatest.
This is a pattern social media plan impressed by HubSpot’s Social Media Content material Template that will help you discover a number of platforms.
Running a blog Media Plan
Monitoring how usually you publish weblog content material is essential for monitoring your progress. A running a blog media plan can assist you handle your writers effectively, decreasing the necessity for fixed electronic mail follow-ups about their weblog publish progress.
Right here is a straightforward instance of a running a blog media plan you may obtain from HubSpot.
PR Media Plan
Making a PR media plan generally is a bit extra intensive because it entails coordinating with different organizations. You will want to decide on the precise type of commercial, collect the required assets, and determine key contacts.
On this pattern template, I’m solely sharing the “attain out” and “content material planning” phases. Nevertheless, the whole template from HubSpot has all the things you want, together with useful resource planning. As a bonus, in the event you’re a newbie, you may even take the free course on PR Media. Try the whole HubSpot PR Plan template.
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Exercise |
Description |
Begin Date |
Finish Date |
|
Visitor posts |
Selling our new exercise pants |
3 March, 2025 |
3 June, 2025 |
|
Press releases in recognized publications |
Selling our model usually |
10 July, 2025 |
20 December, 2025 |
|
Newsletters |
Ship out month-to-month newsletters each month |
3 March, 2025 |
29 December, 2025 |
We‘ve lined media planning intimately, however there’s one other essential side to think about: media shopping for.
Let’s get into it.
Media Planning vs. Media Shopping for
Digital media planning and media shopping for are carefully associated and work hand-in-hand. Relying on your small business measurement and price range, the identical staff members may deal with each planning and shopping for.
So, what makes these processes distinctive?
Media planning entails deciding which media content material to create, publish, and share along with your clients and target market. This media content material is all-encompassing and doesn’t all the time embrace paid adverts and content material.
Media shopping for, then again, is a definite course of centered on buying promoting house and time on varied platforms. That is the place the primary distinction between media planning and media shopping for lies.
What’s media shopping for?
Media shopping for is all about paid media. This implies your small business buys campaigns or advert house on varied channels, pays to share focused campaigns and adverts, or negotiates with media distributors.
Whereas sharing media and reaching your viewers at no cost is feasible, efficient media planning can nonetheless occur with out media shopping for. Nevertheless, media shopping for all the time requires media planning.
Consider it like this: all squares are rectangles, however not all rectangles are squares. Media planning units the tone and course for the media shopping for that follows.
As soon as you have bought advert house or negotiated content material distribution, you want a technique—or a media plan—for delivering that media to your viewers and clients.
Media Planner
A media planner is also called a model strategist or a model planner. They’re chargeable for planning promoting methods and creating campaigns for companies.
If you happen to don’t have an in-house media planner, you’ll want to think about hiring one that will help you with the campaigns. However what precisely does a media planner do? And the way a lot will it value?
Beneath are the solutions.
What does a media planner do?
A media planner takes over your entire media planning technique, evaluates it, and advises you on the best way ahead.
Listed here are some roles {that a} media planner will deal with in your organization:
- Maximizing the impression on all commercials you pay by networking with media shopping for businesses
- Developing with artistic methods to succeed in out to your goal audiences for higher engagement and conversion charges
- Figuring out one of the best platforms for your small business to make sure you’re spending your advert cash the place you’re more likely to get returns
How a lot do media planners make?
In response to Comparably, the typical Media Planner within the US makes $69,374. When working with a media planner, count on to pay them between $30,000-$150,000.
If you happen to want an professional planner with a few years of expertise, then you definitely’ll must plan for about $155,000.
Nevertheless, you may all the time lower your expenses by hiring a contract media planner. They may cost a bit extra per hour, however you solely pay them when you may have a undertaking.
Start Your Media Planning Course of
Media planning is an integral a part of your small business’s means to create, publish, and share media content material efficiently.
I like to recommend using the pulsing media plan the place you may. It provides you the consistency of steady promoting with the depth of flighting, making certain a gentle presence whereas permitting for strategic bursts of exercise.
What has all the time shocked me is how dynamic media planning may be. No two campaigns are the identical and require their very own distinctive technique, however that‘s a part of the problem and pleasure. So long as you recognize when and the place to interact your viewers, you’re on the precise path.
Editor’s notice: This publish was initially printed in February 2020 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.
