1. What are your marketing communications objectives?
2. Who is your target audience? What do you know about them?
   
   
   • How are they segmented and/or defined?
   • Are they (potentially) profitable customers? What is their (potential) lifetime value?

     How much media budget can you cost effectively spend on each individual?

   • Who/what influences their buying behaviour? When exactly?  How can marketing communications influence the decision-making process of each customer?
   • How have your audience responded/reacted to different media in the past?
   • Which media do they trust?  What is their online/offline split?
   • Which channels have historically delivered the highest return on your media investment?
   • What other insight do you have on them?  What does TGI and/or other marketing information suppliers tell you about them?
   • Should you produce a pen portrait of their media usage during a typical day?
3. What is your targeting strategy?
4. What should be integrated?
5. Choose your media channel options.
   
   
   • What is your digital marketing strategy?
   • What is your social media strategy?
   • What is your direct marketing strategy?
   • What is your PR strategy?
   • What is your sales promotion strategy?
   • What is your advertising strategy?
   • What is your face-to-face (field marketing/experiential) strategy?
   • What is your personal selling strategy?

   How will each channel integrate?

   Review the advantages and disadvantages of using different media.

6. What is the media budget?
7. What is your contact strategy?
8. What needs to they have?  What is your proposition to each audience or segment?
9. How will the strategy be evaluated?

See this academic guide to the Marketing Communications Strategy.

Media planning

1. What are the media objectives of your media plan/media strategy?

   What is the media budget?

   Use the media brief template, in the column, opposite.

2. Learn as much as you can from testing and past experience.

   What does your data analysis tell you?

3. How might your big idea be integrated and used creatively within the media plan?

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See also

• This academic introduction to media neutral planning
• Internal marketing communications
• The academic introduction to creating a communications strategy.
• How to align your communications strategy to your marketing strategy and your corporate strategy.
• How your marketing communications produces a competitive advantage.
• The strategic aims of your marketing communications.
• The global/international aspects of marketing communication
• The role of marketing communications in the context of B2B and international marketing.