Direct Response Marketing & Advertising Tips

Media Buyers' Top-10 Tips For Success.

THE MEDIA BUYERS we spoke to for this article gave us their 10 best tips for success when it comes to successful DRTV media buying. Here they are:

1. To get the best time slots, start by weighing, measuring, and analyzing history. Seek avails that have popular lead-ins, high ratings and good audience shares.

2. Try different strategies, like placing 52-week contracts in attempt to control the best time that is available at a specific station.

3. Keeping communication with the sales staff and the traffic staff at stations seamless is very important, and it goes a long way in insuring your success.

4. Realize that media buying is no longer a front-end game, but a back-end game. The person who puts a product on the air and expects to make money on the front-end is a rarity, and the vast majority of the money these days is made on the upsell, and the add-on sell, on the Internet and at retail.

5. Successful media buying is actually a combination of elements. For example, one agency uses a combination of the best in traditional planning methodologies including syndicated research such as MRI and Nielsen, along with proprietary results database and the agency's collective experience.

6. In DRTV media buying, the marketplace functions much like a commodities exchange, where variables such as one hot show entering the market, can dramatically impact prices and availabilities.

7. Harsh as it may sound, the best time slots are simply not available to firms that do not have a long history in the industry. But on the other hand, volume and variety of time periods purchased is key to getting the better time periods.

8. Before making a decision to purchase airtime, the media buyer must open up his or her wallet and ask themselves a simple question: If that was your money you were putting down on that time period for your show, would you spend it? If they can answer that honestly, then that person has the makings of a successful media buyer who can get the most out of their media dollars.

9. Monitor and respond to results with vigorous attention on a daily basis. And remember that it°s critical to understand what the policies are for each of the stations on a buy. As a result, you will know how quickly to move media based on performance.

10. Lastly, think of a chainsaw juggling unicyclist on a tight wire, and you have a pretty good description for a DRTV media buyer.

Response OCTOBER 2000