How I’ve Learned to Improve Media Team Efficiency During My 17 Years in the Industry

An efficient media team will set you up for success. It’s important to understand client nuances, and client risks and build a solid foundation to ensure future efficiency. Here are some tips that I’ve learned on how to maintain the efficiency of your media team and agency:

• Expect That Clients May Suddenly Turn Off Spend – In times of economic uncertainty clients may panic and the first thing they will do is shut off anything that doesn’t have an IO, which is usually Search and Social spend. If you’re an agency that’s paid based on a percentage of media spend, this will lead to an immediate hit to your revenue. Start warming up your network to be able to acquire new clients to supplement this cut in spending. 
• Watch Out for the Sleeping Bears – Some clients are very active and request things on a daily basis. Sleeping bears are your quiet clients that don’t ask for much and you think everything is going well. But suddenly, they wake up and want to know what you’ve done for them lately and will quickly fire you if the answer isn’t good. Be proactive in engaging your sleeping bears and demonstrate your value so you aren’t seen as something that can easily be cut.
• Audit and Structure Your Accounts for Efficiency – If you do need to cut media spend, have a plan for how you can reduce while still maintaining revenue. Separate your bottom-funnel tactics from your upper-funnel tactics at the campaign level so you can make sure to prioritize what is driving revenue.
• Monitor for Changes in Consumer Behavior  – Begin looking at year-over-year and month-over-month trends to see if anything has changed. If consumers are spending less, you’ll notice it in the trend reports. You might even be able to find some new opportunities in your data, so continue to test.
• Automate the Easy Stuff So You Can Focus on the Hard Stuff  – Identify any time-consuming processes that your team is doing. Reporting is a common one that sucks up a lot of time, and if they aren’t coupled with insights and ideas, clients don’t pay attention. See if you can automate your reporting data into a dashboard so your team can focus on the insights and recommendations, the part that provides the most value to your client.

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