There are a lot of different ways to come to a media plan that is proposed to a client.
Sometimes you judge it based solely on costs: if the CPM is low enough, then a site gets on a buy.
Sometimes it is strictly the availability of certain creative units that is important because the media strategy is being driven by the creative strategy, rather than the other way around.
Sometimes you just have to give your client the media plan that he or she is asking for and that's that. The client comes to the agency with a specific marketing plan in mind and a firm idea of which media he or she wants to use, as well as a pre-selected list of media vehicles. Personally, I share David Ogilvy's view on the matter which is, "Why buy a dog if you are going to do your own barking?"
And then sometimes you simply have to put the plan together that you know you have the best shot at selling through to your client.
But all roads lead to Damascus, and your job is to choose the one that gets you there the most quickly while still affording you the opportunity to see all of the sites (no pun intended).
One way to quickly put a media plan together that will actually be a plan -- something that will as much as possible satisfy objectives and provide you with the rational for your selection -- is to use a combination of criteria. Then you organize the data that fits (or does not fit) those criteria, with placements well selected and vehicles well reasoned
The best way I've found to do this is through the use of an RFP Scorecard.
It's something I borrowed from traditional media. It was so long ago I can no longer remember when it was, exactly, but I was in San Francisco at a part-media conference, part-training day. It was being sponsored by one of the big print auditing companies, BPI or ABC. A gentleman from Ogilvy & Mather talked about how his group used a scoring system to aid in judging the sometimes dozens upon dozens of proposals that came in for any one print plan.
Next: The 1 to 5 point scoring system
