By Abe Kasbo:

We often advise our clients to strategically “own” media. In other words, develop a media plan within the overall marketing plan that allows enough frequency of your message in particular media to reach your audience. It’s also important to identify goals for each medium, for example: “call to action” in the papers, brand awareness for television, and brand interactivity for the web, etc.

Marketing and advertising media integration is the corner stone of media synergy. Media synergy allows your message and budget to work harder for you. Media syergy is the principle that allows different media outlets to work together in one campaign or several campaigns.

*Note – since this is a wide topic, I will write several pieces to address the issue, so be sure to come back.

But what if you’re invested in mediums in transition. OK, let’s stop beating around the bush – what I mean is, what if you’re investing in newspapers and radio. With these mediums are on the decline, what do you do?

That giant sucking sound you hear is indeed the Internet swooping away consumers from radio, newspapers, and even TV. Even so, my philosophy is that newspapers and radio are not going away. Newspapers may have wiped out the town crier, but radio did not kill newspapers when it was first introduced, and TV did not bury radio. And while the Internet is, to this point, a peerless medium, and will surely drive consolidation among regional newspapers and radio stations, but by-and-large newspapers and radio are here to stay.

So if you’re invested in these media, make sure that your message resonates. You may have a smaller audience pool for your message, that’s why the quality of you message is key in these unchartered waters. Also, consider offers and bounce your advertising message to another medium like the web or the phone. For example, if you have an offer in your magazine ad, drive response to the web or phone so you can measure better. Now, we’ve got two outlets working harder for you. And I am assuming your website is optimized to get even a larger bang.

In the meantime, consider negotiating harder with outlets in transition, they don’t want to loose your business.