As a startup founder, investor, or marketing leader, you might wonder how to best reach your target audience. One of the hardest things about that, though, might be understanding how to evaluate all of this with the right media mix types. Knowing which media mix types to prioritize is a game-changer.
Understanding the nuances of media mix types can feel like solving a constantly shifting puzzle. You’ll learn how a well-crafted strategy can transform your marketing strategy efforts.
Table of Contents:
- Understanding Different Media Mix Types
- Choosing Your Mix
- Balancing Your Budget
- Real-World Examples
- Measuring Impact
- Conclusion
Understanding Different Media Mix Types
Think of a media mix like your marketing recipe. It’s the blend of different marketing channels you use. It is the core of your media mix models.
It’s not just about *where* you’re advertising, though. It’s also about how those different elements of a campaign come together.
Paid Media
Paid media involves paying for placement. This includes things like online display ads or even paid search engine marketing.
Social media ads are huge. Instagram ads can reach over 849 million users.
Earned Media
Earned media is, in many ways, about your reputation and what people say about your brand organically. Positive reviews and even press mentions build on this earned credibility. Public relations efforts focus heavily on earned media.
Good examples of earned media in use are features in a high-impact magazine. Being mentioned in a top-tier podcast like Marketing Against the Grain also exemplifies this channel.
Owned Media
Owned media is the content you create. Think blog posts, email marketing campaigns or even how you use social media. These media channels let you control your full brand message.
One example is the regular insightful takes seen in the The Hustle newsletter. Many people prefer the short insights delivered there as their prefered type of content format.
Choosing Your Mix
It’s key to figure out the channels business leaders use that reach your customers most effectively. A recent HubSpot survey reported that 39% of marketers find determining the best media mix their biggest challenge.
It gets even tougher. Approximately 62% of marketers struggle with allocating ad budgets to reach the people that matter to them most. This speaks volumes.
Despite this, 64% of global marketers still expect their ad budgets to increase. Marketers have realized you need a mix that targets all segments of customers and engages each in different stages.
Factors Influencing Channel Choices
Several key questions can guide the process of allocating various resources. Start by asking questions like the below.
- What is the main purpose of this campaign and will it grow over time?
- Which stage in their customer journey are we trying to move customers to at any particular stage?
- Where do the type of customers spend their time online or offline?
These aren’t always the easiest to answer at first. You need real testing and validation of assumptions through historical data.
The Shift to Digital
Many companies now turn to streaming platforms, too. The reason? Consumers increasingly prefer to be entertained in different ways than they did in the past and that requires a strong marketing plan.
84% of global marketers have adopted these digital consumption shifts, and with good reason. About 56% of brands are reducing their spend on traditional television.
Balancing Your Budget
Budget is, of course, crucial. This shows because it will affect which areas your project will go. Careful budgeting informs decisions across your marketing mix.
Incredibly, 60% of brands expect to increase their overall media spend. With 73% of marketers under pressure to deliver more with less, those decisions of what part of the mix matters become even more important. A well-defined media mix optimization approach becomes even more important.
Brand vs. Performance Advertising
It might also come down to balancing brand building against immediate sales results. Performance is critical. Growing a long term audience to increase brand loyalty is, too.
Data shows 35% of brands shifting towards prioritizing their overall branding more. So, this balancing act of different pieces of the advertising formula still proves critical to building overall brand awareness.
Out-of-Home Advertising’s Growth
While digital media thrives, traditional methods are actually expanding. For instance, out-of-home options, which consist of things like billboards and bus shelter ads, hold value for many, too.
By 2032, the out-of-home ad market is projected to grow to US$40.3 billion. This continued investment shows the persistent power of channels. These channels also provide great customer service.
Real-World Examples
Consider how The Lip Bar cleverly used various media channels to reach people who resonated with them. This included having an event at a very specific offline in-person venue while running campaigns at the same time that encouraged in-person visits at very specific times.
They even used a quick 59-second YouTube video, too. This reinforced a sense of recognition that fit with other parts of the ad run. Different stages matter a lot when looking at the whole customer journey.
Measuring Impact
How do you actually prove that certain parts of your combination is having impact? The most traditional way of looking at it is through attribution analysis, often informed by historical data. It gives you a more holistic view.
More and more brands are using Media Mix Modeling, which helps too. This approach, or marketing mix modeling approach helps with assessing value across campaigns that are already happening.
Attribution Analysis
Traditional attribution gives credit to each “touch” a customer makes. Did they click an ad? Open a sales email?
Attribution paints the “big picture”. This method measures if all the parts add up. It will keep track of everything, and eventually, consistent areas become apparent, even offline actions.
| Channel Type | Example | How You Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Paid | Targeted Online Banners | Reach Very Specific Audience Segments with Minimal Effort |
| Owned | High Impact Website Content | You Completely Control Messaging that Grows Trust |
| Earned | High Authority Media Mentions | Enhances Broad Awareness with Unquestionable Trust |
The table is great to use in content to better visualize and to better break down more complex information in ways to help a user.
Exploring Media Mix Modeling
Media mix modeling (MMM) goes deeper still. MMM is an analysis technique. Marketing leaders use it for statistical analysis.
The approach identifies the best parts of each ad mix. So what this ultimately lets you do is take some part of an initiative that’s working well and scale those areas to become even stronger while dropping lesser-performing sections. With the linear regression and multiple linear regression models, the dependent variable changes based on the success to give great insight.
You will want to pick a good relevant metrics to monitor for too long without knowing if your tactics work or not. Be sure to pick good software or else the model fit will not perform. All of the various pieces need to fit together correctly.
Conclusion
Staying informed is essential for effective marketing. Smart marketers get that building connections between their brands and the outside world also means learning to listen closely, too. The media mix types matter here when wanting to optimize marketing.
Mixing proven methods with modern technologies will also go far. You should never stop seeking the media channels and message to what consumers want to listen to. You always need to analyze your mix to fully learn how your marketing mix is working.
Those leaders who master that process do exceptionally well. Always continue to do more research in your specific industry as that will help you greatly so that you do not allocate marketing resources incorrectly. A failure to review all of that could end up having a huge campaign impact on your business.
