Time moves quickly and this article is now a touch out of date – I’ll be doing my best to update and extend significantly in late 2021
Please don’t base your media choice on your own behaviour. Deciding anything on a sample size of one is just stupid or for that matter your workmates or your friends. You will inevitably be left with a skewed perspective on what media is consumed by a wider audience.
The second point that must be driven home is that media choice follows your marketing strategy. It’s a tactical choice. If you don’t know who your market segments are, your key communication messages and most importantly your marketing objectives – then this is not the article for you. Go and sort out your strategy first.
There are so many options to communicate via. However with so much choice also comes the challenge of actually choosing. Do I use the so-called traditional media or new digital marketing tools? Above the line or below the line advertising options? If your running a small business then the ability to choose multiple media will be severely limited due to budgeting constraints – making the decision even more critical.
The best option is to first forget all of the old terminology related to media. The lines have been blurred to such as extent that the term digital is meaningless and the same for above the line or below – who cares? – it all ends up on the balance sheet.
Media choice is just one big toolbox – nothing else. Determine your marketing objectives and then without any bias, review each media option as a tool and decide which will do the job the best. We’re looking forward to developing several tools to help small businesses choose but for now please find several key pieces of information that cover media usage at a high level.
Media Consumer Survey 2018
A nice place to start is reviewing the media surveys conducted by some of the bigger consulting firms in Australia – they just have the resources to pull in data that we wish was at our fingertips. The Deloitte Australian Media and Digital Entertainment Preferences Surveys are now in their seventh edition – and while I think it focuses a touch too much on the new and shiny it is still a great read on media consumption in Australia.
Media Effectiveness
The following is probably the most important piece of research done for a while on media effectiveness. The researchers Ebqiuity, review key media options against a range of criteria and attempt to give an objective perspective. They also researched to find marketers subjective perspectives on media effectiveness – with a noticeable difference between objective and subjective results.
Note – the data is generated via research in the UK but still it’s a gem of a study.
The following criteria were used.
- targeting the right people in the right place at the right time
- increasing campaign ROI
- triggering a positive emotional response
- increasing brand salience
- maximising campaign reach.
https://www.radiocentre.org/re-evaluating-media/
The Long and The Short of it
It’s common folklore among many small business experts to say that “brand” marketing is a waste of money and that all marketing should be “direct-response” marketing. The answer is never that black and white, even for smaller businesses. The following is a wonderful piece of research highlighting the importance of doing a bit of both.
https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/documents/the-long-and-the-short-of-it-presentation
Q4 2017 Australian Video Viewing Report
Think you know how Australians consume TV based on what you and your mates do? Think again. Think that young people do not watch free-to-view TV? Think again.
OzTAM is the official source of television audience measurement (TAM) with their research covering Australia’s five mainland metropolitan markets and nationally for subscription television. The latest Australian Video Viewing Report spans the year through Q4 2017.
The key takeaway – accordingly, most Australians, regardless of age, continue to watch broadcast TV – around 20 million Australians – that’s more than 82 per cent of people in metered markets – watch free-to-air and/or subscription TV channels each week.
https://oztam.com.au/documents/Other/AVVR-Q4-2017-Med%20Res%20Final.pdf
Australian TV performance in 2018
How did the various Australian TV stations perform in the 2018 rating season? Seven comes out tops but the reality is that you could choose to purchase spots on either Channel 7 or Channel 9 and get a good result.
http://www.adnews.com.au/news/seven-takes-yearly-ratings-win
Consumer behaviour during TV ads
Do we all get up and run for the toilet? No. Surprisingly a lot of us just keep on watching the TV – gasp!
http://www.adnews.com.au/opinion/putting-the-kettle-on-what-people-are-really-doing-during-ad-breaks
Small Businesses and growing using TV
https://www.thinkbox.tv/research/thinkbox-research/as-seen-on-tv-supercharging-your-small-business/
Australian Radio Station Ratings
Looking to invest in radio? Check the most recent ratings for commercial radio stations across Australia. Note – this data does not include the performance of community radio stations, and some of the community stations perform very well making them viable choices for advertising, at potentially lower price points.
http://radiotoday.com.au/ratings/
Which search engine to advertise on?
If your looking into Search Engine Marketing then focusing on Google in Australia will cover the majority of the population – well over 90%
http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/australia/2016
Stay tuned – lots more to come!
