Signature January/February 2015 - 28

So what do you need to know to increase
your chances of getting business from an
advertising agency? Elliott's company partnered on a study with Davis and Kantar
Media, the analysts that offer the SRDS.
com multi-media planning platform and
help advertisers, agencies, and publishers
measure their media image and impact.
The results of their extensive study of
media planning and buying are enlightening and offer associations insights into
what it takes to sell advertising to agencies.

RESPONDENTS
The purpose of the market research study
was to understand the information needs
of media planners and buyers at agencies. "Planners have a strategic role, while
buyers negotiate the buy from a list of
targets," Davis explains. "The majority
of media people do both."
Among the objectives was not only determining the habits of media planners
and buyers, but also looking at what resources they use for planning and buying
advertising as well as determining what
factors impact their media selection.
Just under 400 individuals responded to the survey emailed in early 2015
(a 5.3 percent response rate), and all of
them stated they had researched, recommended, planned, or bought B2B,
consumer, or digital media in the past 12
months. Among the B2B media group,
about 66 percent of the respondents had
both planned and bought media during
that timeframe. Respondents are responsible for an average of six clients each and
work on an average of seven brands. Here
are the study highlights that are key to
association publishers.

SCHEDULING
In the B2B media group, annual frequency is still the type of schedule worked on
most frequently, but for just 39 percent
of respondents. A close second was the
28 percent who work on sporadic schedules. About 22 percent plan their clients'
advertising on a quarterly basis.
The study pointed out that the trend
toward fewer annual schedules translates into a less predictable workload for
28

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 16

signature

Agency
Ad-Buying
Influencers
In order of importance to B2B
media group respondents
Total cost/price
CPM delivery
n■ Circulation/size of the
magazine/site
n■ Rate card discount
n■ Positioning
n■ Audit/statement of
circulation
n■ Competitive separation
n■ R&F/optimizations
n■ Syndicated audience data
n■ Integrated package
n■ Proprietary audience data
n■ Bonus/special research
n■ Ad noting data
n■
n■

SOURCE: KANTAR MEDIA/JAMES G. ELLIOTT
SURVEY, STUDY OF MEDIA PLANNING &
BUYING 2015

"Advertisers
wanting a
discount is a fact
of life, so raise
your rates a little
every year so that
you have a margin
to negotiate."
JAMES G. ELLIOTT

agency buyers - and that often accounts
for their last-minute requests for proposals from publishers. "Agency buyers are
time starved," as Elliott puts it.

RESOURCES
The resources used always or most often
by agency respondents to prepare plans
and select media for consideration are
the advertising client's previous plan (91
percent), input from client (89 percent),
research (79 percent), circulation audit
statement (70 percent), look and feel of
the magazine/website (68 percent), input
from the sellers/publishers (62 percent),
and SRDS (61 percent).
"Of course, many of these are outside
a publisher's control," Davis points out,
"but it's important to understand what
resources the agency is considering."

RFPs
In the B2B media group, RFPs are used
frequently in the planning and buying
process. In fact, 85 percent of agency
respondents said they use RFPS always
or often. In addition, 75 percent of those
who use RFPs rate them as extremely or
very important.
Considering the finding that more
agency planners and buyers are doing
their clients' schedules sporadically -
which leads to an unpredictable workflow
- it's not surprising that 90 percent of
B2B media group respondents who use
RFPs usually allow 10 days or less for
publishers to complete them. In fact, 47
percent only allow publishers one to five
days to complete their RFPs.

BREAKING IN
It's not always easy to get noticed by
an agency, but B2B media respondents
are open to putting new publications
on their clients' schedules. About 76
percent sometimes recommend a previously unknown magazine or website,
and seven percent often do.
Furthermore, if a publisher doesn't
make it onto an advertiser's schedule, only
19 percent of overall agency respondents
said they always or often give the publisher a chance to change their proposal.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Signature January/February 2015

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