MKTG3112 Chap.6 Media Planning, Reach and Scheduling
Media Planning, Reach and Scheduling
Media strategy selects and schedules channels so a defined audience encounters a suitable message under useful conditions. This chapter distinguishes reach from frequency, compares channel contexts and uses continuous, flighting and pulsing schedules. Reach and frequency are different media objectives and usually compete for limited resources.
The planner also considers geographic coverage, continuity, impact and cost efficiency in relation to the defined audience. Channel choice depends on communication conditions, not on a simple traditional versus digital division. Broadcast can create broad emotional impact, print can support detail and credibility, and digital systems can target, interact and optimise while introducing clutter, privacy and platform risks.
Scheduling may be continuous, flighted or pulsed. The pattern should reflect demand, audience learning, purchase timing and the cost of maintaining presence.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Media planning decisions
- 02
Reach and frequency
- 03
Geographic coverage and continuity
- 04
Broadcast, print and digital contexts
- 05
Continuous and flighting schedules
- 06
Pulsing and measurable hand offs
Scheduling choices for a winter health campaign
- +1Maintain findability through search and owned information. The practice weighting here is not a published university assessment scheme.
- +1Pulse local audio, outdoor and partnerships before priority periods.
- +1Track qualified visits, bookings and geographic gaps before adding reach.
Key terms
- Reach
- The count or share of a defined target audience that encounters a campaign during a stated period.
- Frequency
- The average number of exposures among members of the audience reached in a period.
- Pulsing schedule
- A media pattern that maintains a base presence while adding activity during priority periods.
Media Planning, Reach and Scheduling FAQ
Should a campaign always maximise reach?
No. Broad reach can be useful for awareness, but a smaller qualified audience with adequate frequency may better support comprehension, persuasion or action under limited resources.
How should media efficiency be judged?
Judge cost against the assigned channel job and qualified audience movement. Cheap impressions outside the relevant audience can be less efficient than higher cost exposure in a trusted context.
What makes a media channel suitable for a message?
Assess whether the channel gives the audience enough attention, sensory information, credibility and opportunity to respond for the assigned communication job. Also consider targeting, timing, cost, clutter, privacy and measurement limits. Popularity alone does not establish strategic fit.
How should a campaign select a scheduling pattern?
Use continuous activity when relevance persists and absence would create a gap, flighting when clear seasons or events concentrate value, and pulsing when an always available base needs priority bursts. Compare memory decay, competitive noise, cost and the audience decision timeline before selecting the pattern.
How should channel roles influence campaign measurement?
Match each measure to the communication job assigned to the channel. An introductory video may be judged by qualified reach and correct proposition recall, while search may be judged by relevant visits and a service page by comprehension or completion. Do not force every channel to claim direct conversion, but require evidence that it contributes to the sequence.
Review hand offs between channels because strong isolated metrics can coexist with a weak campaign path and poor audience movement.
Why can average frequency be misleading?
An average can hide a small group receiving many exposures while much of the target audience receives none. It can also conceal differences by geography, platform or time. Inspect the distribution where data permits and relate it to the response path.
Rebalance delivery if overexposure produces wear or if qualified groups remain unreached, but protect effective repetition when the message genuinely needs several encounters to be understood or acted upon.
Assessment move
Create a one-line record for every channel covering audience, job, message condition, timing, hand off and measure. Compare reach and frequency choices against the communication objective and purchase context. Build a media table with one row per channel and columns for audience, job, message condition, schedule, hand off and measure. Replace every vague awareness label with a more precise verb.
Then allocate a fixed resource between reach and frequency for two objectives: broad introduction and careful persuasion. Explain why the balance changes. Design continuous, flighting and pulsing alternatives for the same service and identify the demand assumption behind each.
Evaluate cost using qualified audience movement rather than total impressions, while reporting attribution limits honestly.Build three versions of the same plan under different constraints: limited geographic coverage, a short seasonal window and a small high involvement audience. Recalculate the reach and frequency priority, channel context and schedule for each.
Explain which metric becomes less useful when the constraint changes. Then examine whether operational capacity can absorb the response pattern the media plan seeks to create. The final recommendation should connect delivery, audience experience and service capacity rather than optimise impressions in isolation.
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