Once you have market research to determine your customer demographic, you must research the media market. When expanding a marketing effort or launching a new product, customer analysis lets you uncover what your customers want, while media market analysis allows you to determine how to best communicate with your customers. Social media research helps you understand how to use social media networks effectively.
Media market research can help you decide whether you want to market your company on radio, television, through print or on the Internet. Whether you do your own analysis or hire media market research companies, the facts you glean can help you determine where to put your advertising money for maximum impact. When trying to determine your media market, consider:
1. Conducting demographic media market analysis to determine who your customers are;
2. Gathering media research information from media market research companies;
3. Analyzing your demographic and market research together.
Media market research firms can help you find information about media market segmentation, size and growth so you can determine which growing media markets appeal to your targeted customers. With good media market analysis, you can decide exactly how to spend your advertising dollars.
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Order competitive media market monitoring services
Competitive media market monitoring services track what your competitors are offering in specific markets. If you are in a very competitive industry -- such as retail or restaurants -- this sort of analysis is important because your marketing strategy needs to change as the media market does. Monitoring services can help you understand what competitors are spending, what media they are using and other strategic details.
I recommend: Mintel Comperemedia lets companies access market and media research monitoring services.
Burrelles Luce can customize your monitoring service so that you get the exact information you need.
Hire a media market research company to run a customized analysis of media markets
While advertising media research reports are useful, hiring a media market research firm to conduct media market intelligence on your behalf yields even better results. A company can analyze several types of media and make recommendations based on your company information. Some companies even conduct customer market research with potential customers and present the information in easy-to-understand formats.
I recommend: Monroe Mendelsohn Research, Inc. offers custom media market research services.
Jupiter Research offers media assessment as well as media market research solutions.
Hire social media market research firms
While most media market research firms focus on traditional media, social media such as blogs, web 2.0, and social networking sites are becoming more important in advertising. If your company plans to advertise heavily online, it may be worthwhile to hire a social media marketing research company. Such a company can help you determine best branding practices for social media and can help you get social media market research information, which may be hard to find through other sources.
I recommend: Umbria analyzes social media and offers social media market information.
BuzzLogic offers media market research applications for marketers and advertisers.
Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide
- Media market research firms publish up-to-date reports that detail specific media markets but also outline market research. Before you conduct media research, you need to find out as much as you can about your market and your customers. You can accomplish this by ordering targeted market reports.
- You can also find some media market research information yourself at no cost. Consider setting up Google Alerts for keywords that relate to media and your industry. Every time an article is printed about the marketing strategies your competitors are using, you will get an email.
The official source of Media Market Analysis is the Media Market Analysis page at Business.com
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