5 Reasons to Hire a TV Media Buyer
Are you a business owner or marketing manager who has considered or tried using TV to promote your business or product? It can be overwhelming.
First you must determine which stations are the right fit for your product--should you use cable or broadcast or mixture of both? Then you have to arrange meetings with sales reps from each of those stations, most of which assure you their station is definitely the best fit. Then there's determining which dayparts and programs to run in; where do you find the viewers that are most likely to purchase your product? And it's so EXPENSIVE--you want to know that your money is being well-spent.
If you are spending more than $30,000 a year on TV advertising, here are 5 reasons you should hire an experienced media buyer:
1) Impartial Recommendations: A trusted media buyer has a solid relationship with EVERY cable and broadcast station in the local market and gathers ALL available opportunities (in other words, they don't make friends with just one station and play favorites with that sales rep). Using available research for the stations or networks in your area, they are a knowledgeable resource to recommend the best use of your ad dollars.
2) Efficient Buys: An expert media buyer will enter ALL avails into a software system, sort them by your targeted demo, program ratings, and rates and develop the highest reach & frequency media plan by reviewing all options available. Do you have time to gather the programs, times, rates, and ratings from every station, much less have a software system that ranks it based on daypart, reach or frequency goals? This in itself should make you feel the immediate value of a seasoned media buyer.
3) Tracking Invoices: We can't tell you how often we've heard sales reps tell us, "No one else besides you ever checks their invoices." Here's what happens: Business owner agrees to a contract with station; station enters the order; station doesn't run order exactly as stated in contract; business owner pays invoice without double-checking every spot. Now, not every media buyer does their due diligence in this area, but a good media buyer, especially one with a good software system, will thoroughly check all invoices to ensure all spots ran as placed, and take credit or get station makegoods for anything that didn't run as contracted. We've found tens of thousands of dollars of mistakes over our 13+ years in media buying. Only hire a media buyer who reviews your invoices carefully.
4) Simplified Billing: A media buyer will gather all invoices from stations, thoroughly review them, then put all of them together in one monthly billing statement. No need to pay multiple bills to multiple vendors--just one easy bill to review. And if your business uses co-op dollars, a media buyer will make sure all stations provide the co-op backup and provide that at the same time of billing.
5) It's FREE: This is not a gimmick. Many small business owners or marketing managers might not realize that TV stations offer a 15% discount to recognized ad agencies. The agency takes the 15% discount as their commission. To demonstrate, consider the negotiated rate of a morning news spot is $100. It's $100 if you buy it. It's $100 if the media buyer buys it (or possibly less as they should have good negotiating skills as well). You still are paying $100 for that spot, but the station now gives $15 to the agency as its commission.
Still wondering why you're not using a professional media buyer?
Send us an email or give us a call. We're happy to talk media any time.
