by Printipy

How to generate more leads for your brand: Five media buying approaches

Great copies and captivating visuals go a long way in getting brand messages across to their target audience and leading prospects towards taking a defined course of action. But that’s not all that there is to marketing and lead generation. 

Imagine placing a Gucci or Swarovsky ad right in the heart of an inner-city slum with the expectation of driving sales within the community, or placing a hamburger ad in the middle of a gym. It’d be a miracle if any of those advertising or marketing efforts yield any result and only a matter of time before whoever had the “initiative” to deploy those ads in those locations loses their job if they keep going in that direction. 

In marketing, having the right ad placement is just as important as having the right messages. This is because it’s the only way to guarantee that these ads reach their intended audience and by extension the only way to ensure that marketing objectives are achieved. This is why media buying is a very important part of marketing and lead generation strategies. 

What is Media Buying? 

Media buying involves securing the right locations, placements, and times to run ads in order to ensure that they appear in the faces of the right audience and are effective.

Think of it as placing an ad or communication material in a place where it will be seen by a very high number of the most interested people in order to achieve the lowest cost per action. 

Now that we’ve established that, let’s take a look at Lead Generation before we tie it in. 

Who is a lead? 

In marketing, a lead is a prospect; anyone who shows interest in purchasing a brand’s product, enjoying a brand’s service, or performing an action in favour of the brand. 

What is lead generation? 

From the definition above we can derive that lead generation involves the process of creating interest in the mind of an intended audience, either to purchase a brand’s product or carry out a defined action in favor of the brand. 

The initial point of interaction in the lead generation journey usually starts from interaction with communication materials created by the brands. This could be a billboard, newspaper or social media ad, or even an email or online survey. 

This initial point is usually the basis for future conversations. At this point, marketers are able to collect the contact details of prospects in exchange for an offer or experience or any form of bait. 

Securing the right media placement helps to make this first step as well as other steps taken further down the sales funnel very seamless. 

Lead generation in Media Buying

Imagine that you own a startup and your core practice is to help investors or aspiring investors manage their investment portfolio and you’re currently looking to onboard new clients. Here’s how an understanding of your consumer behaviour could inform your media buying approach and help you meet your lead generation target. 

Aspiring investors or active investors will, very likely, be in search of resources to help them with understanding investment and making wise investment decisions. As a result, they’d account for the majority of the traffic on investment websites/blogs. With this insight, it’s strategic to purchase a slot for ad placement on such websites and target visitors with an ad informing them of your services and the advantage it affords them.

You can also create an ebook explaining the basics of investment and promote it using the procured media slots. Interested visitors will provide their emails whilst downloading the ebook, thus creating an opportunity to further engage prospects and open sales conversations. 

Now that’s a typical example of media buying for lead generation. 

Top five media buying approaches to achieve lead generation

1. Know your audience 

As illustrated in the scenario above, an accurate understanding of your target audience and their user behaviour contributes positively to the effectiveness of your media buying strategy and lead generation objectives.

To ensure the maximum ROI on your media buying efforts, you will need to ask the following questions; 

1. Who is my target audience (age, personas)
2. What are their interests 
3. Where can I find them 
4. At what time can I find them in item c above.

With accurate answers provided to the above questions, media buying can yield tremendous results in terms of lead generation.

2. Set clear objectives

It’s important to measure the results of media buying efforts. This helps with knowing what modifications need to be made whether in terms of ad placements or content restructuring. Without objectives, it’d be impossible to ascertain ROI and understand what truly works for your brand or campaign. 

Objectives could range from securing downloads, to high open rates, or purchases. Set the objectives and measure for effectiveness. 

3. Always be testing 

Testing is an integral part of media buying. One small tweak could be all the magic you need. The only way to determine what works and what doesn’t is by testing. 

Testing also helps with managing the media buying budget and ensuring higher ROI. This is because of the insight drawn and the opportunity to optimize that testing affords. 

Here are a few things that you might want to test; 

1. Test the ad copy:  Create a few options and see which works best (same applies to email content and other forms of written content)
2. Test content formats: In some cases, a motion graphic is all you need to command the right amount of attention. In other cases, it might just be too much and a still ad could do the trick. 
3. Test placements: Positions, platforms, time of placement, etc. 

4. Plan your budget 

Invest in an adequate amount of research to ensure that you understand how to spend. The most important part of media buying is achieving the best result at optimal cost. This again underlines the importance of testing in media buying. 

5. Be flexible

What yields amazing results today can tank tomorrow. Hence, it’s important to maintain a learning posture and continue monitoring in order to know how to respond to changes in user behaviour or other factors. 

Printipy’s team of marketing professionals has a bank of data on consumer behaviour that could help with your media buying efforts. You can book a consultation session by Saying hell. Leading brands like Chipper and Shago have been beneficiaries of Printipy’s wealth of marketing expertise and you too can be next. 

Find out more about Printipy at https://printipyagency.com/