Marketing objectives may be related to any of the four major areas of marketing: product, promotion, distribution, or price. Before establishing specific media objectives, though, it is important to understand how different media affect your advertising goals. Although the ultimate marketing goal of most campaigns is to sell more products (or services or images), unless the target market learns about the product, it is unlikely that the goal will be reached. Advertising media make target audiences aware of products. Generally, advertising objectives are related to target audiences' decision-making processes.

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	Ideally, marketers want consumers to develop brand loyalties to their brands so that every time John needs to buy more toothpaste, for example, he will always buy Colgate.

The eight principal stages of the consumer decision-making process are:

1. need
2. awareness
3. preference
4. search
5. selection
6. purchase
7. use
8. satisfaction

Need

Contrary to many advertising critics, advertising cannot persuade people to buy something they do not want. However, defining why, exactly, target consumers might need various products will provide clues for reaching those people through media. Market research can reveal the different media habits of different markets, helping media planners determine what their media options are.

Awareness

Advertising tries to make consumers feel the need for certain products. For media specialists, this means reaching those consumers through convincing and relevant brand messages. Simply making people aware of your brand is not sufficient; the real goal should be to make them aware of your brand's message. You might be able to reach 95% of all aquarium owners and make them aware of the new fish food that you sell, but unless they also learn that your product provides 100% of fish’s daily nutritional requirements, a higher percentage than any of your competitors’ fish foods, your advertising will not yield results.

Preference

Consumers develop specific brand preferences after considering all of the available options. Ideally, marketers want consumers to develop brand loyalties to their brands so that every time John needs to buy more toothpaste, for example, he will always buy Colgate. A media plan to build loyalties to your brand of lipstick might include opportunities for target audiences to try your brand at home.

Search

Once target audiences decide that they prefer your brand to other brands, their next step will be to find out where to purchase the item. Therefore, media advertising should also make people aware of the places that sell your product.

Selection and Purchase

The actual selection and purchase can appear to be simple if consumers have already developed brand preferences and know where the products are sold. In reality, though, the war for consumers gets tougher at retail stores. Today's consumer is faced with so many different brands at stores that he or she may decide to go with a competitor's offering. So, the selection and actual purchase process is a crucial stage for marketers and media specialists to consider.

Use and Satisfaction

These final stages of consumer decision processes relate to earlier stages. If people use your job-board service but are dissatisfied with the results, their dissatisfaction will likely mean that they won’t use your service again. Consumer dissatisfaction can then lead to negative publicity and reduce potential sales. So customer satisfaction is extremely important for future success. Although satisfaction is generally not the primary marketing or media objective of a plan, it should, nonetheless, be kept in mind when deciding where, when, and how to place an advertising message. The main purpose of advertising is reinforcement. Advertising helps people justify their purchase decisions and can help counteract buyer’s remorse by increasing customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

A successful media plan is directly tied to the broad marketing objectives of a brand and is usually defined in terms of sales and market share. The goals for media, in turn, are derived from advertising objectives, which define how advertising fits into consumers’ decision processes by increasing awareness, improving customer satisfaction, and/or promoting additional uses of products. Therefore, advertising without clear understanding of consumer decision-making processes and consideration of each stage of the processes will fail.

Reference:

Katz, Helen. The Media Handbook: A Complete Guide to Advertising Media Selection, Planning, Research, and Buying. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003.

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