Haven't developed your media plan for 2023 yet? Good news, you still have some time to do it. To start on the right foot and optimize your results and therefore your revenue, we explain in this article why and how to build a media plan for the coming year.

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What is a media plan? 
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Also called Media Planning, it is a document that outlines all the objectives and advertising campaigns you wish to conduct through various communication channels (social networks and other media). Media planning is often presented in the form of an Excel document.

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Step 1: Define your communication objectives

Before getting into the details of the actions, focus on defining your communication objectives. For this, analyze the current situation and start from your findings to determine the development and improvement axes that will meet the marketing and commercial challenges of your company.

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You may find objectives (listed non-exhaustively) such as:

• Conquer

• Retain

• Consider
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• Convert
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• Increase awareness
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• Improve image
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• Involve
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• Reference
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• Increase sales
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• Increase purchase frequency

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To be able to follow the evolution of the actions and achieve your objectives, ensure they are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). For example, if you want to improve the sales of your product, prefer setting an objective like a 20% increase in sales over the period from March to August 2020 rather than just an increase in sales.

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Step 2: Set a marketing budget

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To guide you on the choices and purchases of suitable advertising spaces, assess the overall budget of your communication campaign in advance. Once an overall budget is defined, it is recommended to organize it by temporality or prepare future decisions to increase or decrease the budget based on defined criteria (such as performance).

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Having a concrete amount then allows you to choose which channels to use and for how long. Some media are more expensive than others, so it is important to fully understand the possibilities of each communication channel depending on your goal.

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Step 3: Define your media and create your communication campaigns

• Adopt a communication strategy suited to your objectives.
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If your objectives tend to evolve over time, it is advisable to plan a media plan over the long term (about 12 months) to frame your actions and follow their evolution over time. Also, establishing management guidelines, for example, related to budget and performance, helps ease media management throughout the campaigns.

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If you notice a performance increase, you need to know if you can increase your spending to take advantage of it!

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• Media strategy: clearly define the targets and communication supports
  

The effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns partly rests on knowing your target audience. Therefore, take into account their age, gender, interests, and profiles. From these elements, you can choose the right action levers. It’s time to bring out your personas!

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Once your objectives and targets are identified, you can choose the right communication channels (Instagram, Facebook, press articles, LinkedIn…). For example, if you decide to target consumers who have an interest in a particular topic, which channel to use?

For B2C, Meta's advertising platform for social networks like Facebook and Instagram is a perfect lever: you can precisely target consumers according to their interests while controlling and evaluating your expenses and results precisely.

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• Frame the dates of your campaigns
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Define the dates of your campaigns to communicate and achieve your objectives within the given period. Paired with the budget, the calendar must take into account market timings throughout the year: during peak times, such as Black Friday and the holidays, or slower periods.

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• Develop the right communication formats
  

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Now that you have determined the platform on which you plan to communicate, define the format that suits your media strategy. Taking the previous example: on Facebook and Instagram, your ads must resonate, appeal, attract your target audience, and be adapted to the format of these social networks on mobile (portrait format, static visuals, videos…).

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Then, it’s time for the next step: planning your publications and campaigns!

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Step 4: Analyze the results

Define in advance the KPIs that will allow evaluating the evolution of your actions. Tracking them will verify that the results obtained are consistent with achieving your objectives. By following your media plan as the guideline for your marketing and communication actions, you can adjust your campaigns and distinguish good and bad practices.

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Examples of KPIs for tracking your communication actions:

• ROI: Return On Investment – Profitability of investments
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• ROAS: Return On Ads Spent – Profitability of advertising expenses
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• CPC: Cost per click
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• CTR: Click-through rate

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To verify their performance, rely on studies conducted or your previous marketing operations.

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Structure and example of a communication plan

Your media plan will contain several entries: Titles, Objectives, Channels, Dates, Levers, Formats, Audiences, and KPIs.
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By following these four steps, you have the key elements for developing an effective media plan for the year 2023. Do you want to be supported in your communication strategy for 2023?

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