Here’s a simple bird's eye view of a broadcast media planning and buying workflow. From start to finish, a standard step-by-step process for broadcast planning and buying looks like this:
Using a complete media planning and buying system makes the process much, much easier because it allows each step to flow seamlessly to the next.
Media Planning
This initial step is where you do your general planning. Media plans represent your budgets, goals and hiatus weeks on a flowchart that is often presented to the client for approval. With Advantage media, client-ready flowcharts can be generated right from your plans. Your flowcharts can include all media types such as digital, print and out-of-home along with broadcast to show your client the complete picture. You can also add visual appeal to your client presentations by creating dashboards from your plans. Later in the process, easily transfer your goals, markets, and hiatus weeks from Media Planning to the Broadcast Worksheet when you’re ready for negotiations and buying.
Broadcast Research
Broadcast Research provides the data to help you determine best choices for possible vendors, dayparts and programming by pulling Rankers, Trends, and Audience Composition Reports for radio. A research tool that is included in your system will allow you to quickly access your data without having to log into multiple systems.
Broadcast Worksheet
The broadcast worksheet is the step in the workflow where detailed importing, negotiations and placement happen. Eliminate duplicate entries by importing goals, markets and hiatus weeks from your plan. Request avails from vendors one at time or all at once. Manually enter avails into the worksheet or save time and easily import them electronically. Have you ever wished you could select and import only the avails you want? With Advantage, you can! No need to delete unwanted avails after importing.
In this step, you also estimate the ratings for trends. Then create and maintain your orders. With Advantage, orders can be generated right from the Broadcast Worksheet where tracking order status is effortless! And say goodbye to makegood madness! Advantage's electronic makegood submission and acceptance simplifies the process for both you and your vendor reps. Finally, you can create and submit your traffic, which can also be done right from the Advantage Broadcast Worksheet.
Media Manager
Once everything is in place, it's time to manage and reconcile vendor invoices. This means pulling up batches of orders to review, as well as importing and reconciling invoices from your vendor. Reconciling vendor invoices can be very complex, especially if you deal with high volume. Advantage Media Manager does the work for you, and because it's integrated with Accounts Payable, there's no need to deal with paper invoices and manual approvals. Simply import your vendor invoices and the system will match the spots. What could be easier? Plus, always know the status of every order because you can quickly view the details, and electronic copies are stored.
Reporting
A complete media buying system will have Post Buy and Buy Analysis reporting, as well as other reporting functions, allowing you to see how all your plans delivered. Advantage features complete media reporting for Broadcast as well as all media types.
All the steps of this workflow are available in one system. With Advantage, everything is integrated, saving you time and helping you better manage the moving parts of your media workflow. Whether you are a solo media planner/buyer or have different team members managing each step, Advantage will streamline your process.
The Advantage Agency Management System is the only true all-in-one solution purpose-built for agencies and creative teams of all sizes. The system covers everything from Project and Production Management, Finance and Accounting, Time and Expense Management, and Media Planning and Buying.
We’ve been exclusively focused on helping our clients maximize productivity, efficiency and profitability for over 40 years, with almost a thousand agencies counting on us to help run their business every day.
With Advantage you get a team of US-based agency veterans supporting you every step of the way. All implementation and training is done by experienced Advantage staff, and all clients have unlimited access to our live customer support line from 8am-7:30pm Eastern every business day.
Find out how Advantage can help you by contacting us for a complimentary demo or discussion about your unique needs.