The Media Department Gone Wild – Spring Break Edition

Hoppy Easter!

Betsy Rowbottom here. Matt is traveling this week and we contemplated The Dispatch taking this week as a “Bye Week” with so many people enjoying some well-deserved spring break PTO. Alas, here we are because the media department had other plans. Jon Riley, Digital Media Manager, has been scheming and writing their Dispatch update for weeks with the perfectly timed Easter metaphor… Don’t put all of your media eggs in one basket. You will be amazed to learn just how similar Easter candies and media strategies fit together into a delicious metaphor. I hope you are delighted with every hidden easter egg tip.

We all love a sweet treat every now and again. But, what’s better than one sweet treat? Several sweet treats. Even better? Several sweet treats in several different baskets.

So, what does this timely metaphor mean? We’re talking about your media budget! The treats are your media budget that’s filled with delicious creative and strategy. The baskets are your tactics.

When it comes to media strategy and budgeting, we firmly believe in placing our media eggs into multiple baskets. While it may seem like you can get easy wins by putting everything into the basket labeled “low funnel”, you will still miss out on the important coverage of having other eggs in the baskets labeled “mid funnel” and “top of funnel”.

This is a problem we see all too often, particularly with newer brands. While you may want to get a large volume of sales or leads right away, users across the web might be hesitant to buy from a brand they know nothing about. This is where the “top of funnel” basket comes into play. Tactics like Display advertising, YouTube ads, or OTT (Over-The-Top) advertising play a pivotal role in familiarizing people with your brand. These may not lead to direct, immediate sales but are an important starting point as users work their way toward your “low funnel” basket.

On the other end of the spectrum, putting all of your eggs into the “top of funnel” basket is great for driving impressions and awareness on your ads, but having no eggs in the “low funnel” basket means you’ll be missing out on higher sales/lead driving tactics like Google Search, LinkedIn Ads, or (depending on your strategy) Programmatic advertising.

Carrying on with the timely (chocolate) egg metaphor, you’ll want all parts of the egg to work together harmoniously. That shell should be crunchy, the chocolate should be decadent, and the peanutbutter center should be perfectly satisfying. This is where creative and strategy come into play as they work together with media to create some very high-end chocolate. Powerful creative (the center) grabs attention and drives action, while a strong strategy (the shell) makes sure your eggs match the correct basket based on your client’s needs. Nobody wants to bite into a chocolate egg to find out the candy shell was made entirely with salt and the peanutbutter center is actually pickle flavored (Disclaimer: I love pickles but I doubt it pairs well with chocolate).

So, I’ll say it one more time: don’t put all of your media eggs in one basket! While they might look great in one basket, you’re missing out opportunities and crucial coverage by spreading them between several baskets. After all, seeing several perfectly curated baskets with the best chocolate eggs make for a much better Easter surprise.

Oh, and Happy Easter.