Internal Audit

Media Audit – Its Importance and How to Prepare it?

Advertising is really crucial for the success of any brand or company. Media advertising is an important tool in marketing. Knowing the PR image of the brand in media, forecasting the market conditions, and knowing the competitors help in determining the success of the brand. These factors can overturn the brand’s image in the nick of time. A Media audit is a crucial research tool that determines where the organisation stands in the eyes of the media and how the brand and its expertise are being discussed in the media. This article further discusses media audits in detail.

What is a Media Audit

A Media audit is basically an independent third-party audit that advertisers in a company or organisations employ to review the company’s media-buying costs and its PR image. Media auditing helps advertisers identify that their money is fairly spent and used widely in advertising. It also helps them to know which areas need to be improved and what is lacking behind.

The focus of a Media Audit

Media audits generally focus on what aspects of your company have been discussed in the media in the past and how well the media pursue your company and brand. Media auditing and analysing are generally used to bridge the strategic gap, and it will further help in improving the PR strategy. Media audits also help us in analysing the competitors’ image in the market and will also give a vague idea as to how well a company’s competitors are perceived in the market and which reports and media are quite active in the target market and area.

Media audits also help in increasing the effective brand awareness of a company. It also helps in identifying the grey areas where the company needs to work upon, and it also helps in shutting down the negative rumours and reporting related to the brand. Media audits help in identifying what area of interest in media fetches the most attention and what creates a sense of excitement regarding the brand among the targeted audience.

The main and primary focus of media auditing is to improve the executive’s visibility and how the brand can manage its overall image in the eyes of both media and the targeted audience.

How to Prepare for a Media Audit?

It’s the key responsibility of an advertiser of a company to lay down the foundation for a media audit. Streamlining work and dedicating the responsibilities to each section equally is highly important. After setting the tone and designating the important tasks, it is important to strategize and collect various data and statistics from the past 2-3 years.

For a well and successful media auditing, it is important to analyse the coverage volume and coverage sentiments appropriately and correctly. Coverage volume and sentiments include how many times the brand is mentioned in the media and how positively the media perceives the brand. Apart from this, it is also important to identify how executives and leaders of the brand are represented and perceived in media coverage.

Along with traditional media coverage, media audits should also be combined with financial audits to keep a check on the brand’s financial strength and appeal to investors and shareholders. Combining both aspects together will really help in enhancing the brand’s image in the eyes of the targeted audience, and it will also help in identifying the grey areas where the brand needs to focus on.

Media audit also helps in identifying the loopholes and weaknesses on behalf of the media and PR analysts working in an organisation or in a company. It will reveal which media outlets and sponsors are providing positive coverage of your brand. It will help in shutting down those media outlets that are generating negative reviews of a brand.

Importance of Media Auditing

We have discussed the focus and importance of media auditing briefly above also. It’s time to discuss the importance of media auditing in a broad elaborative manner. Let’s discuss the core importance of media audits. These are mentioned below:-

• Media audits help in identifying and under-covering the gaps in PR marketing that needs to be improved and to be worked upon.
• Media auditing gives a brand the upper hand to identify the grey areas in which the brand needs to focus on yielding and generating the best possible results.
• Media audits also help in uncovering the gaps and in generating new leads, the ways in which a brand can more effectively promote itself in the market and among its targeted audience.
• It also helps in identifying the topics and perspectives that align with the interests of the target audience. Media audits also tell about that what topics concern and interest the most to the targeted audience.
• Such audits also help in determining the core focus areas in which a brand can focus and work to gain an advantage over its competitors and can become a leading expert.

Things to Avoid While Conducting a Media Audit

A good auditor has a clear pre-defined strategic plan that needs to be implemented to yield greater results for a successful media audit. However, there are certain pitfalls that should be avoided to avoid any kind of mistake. These are given below:-

• For conducting a successful media audit, it is necessary to prepare a precise, insightful analysing report.
• It is important to share details about the media audit with authorities; otherwise, it can lead to the creation of conflicting narratives and chaotic situations.
• The core focus should be on collaboration and on transparency, and these two traits should be maintained throughout the media auditing process.
• A well-defined plan and blueprint of the media auditing plan is crucial to avoid any loopholes and mistakes during the conduction of the process.

Conclusion

This article hereby concludes that media audit is an important and strategic market researching tool that helps in identifying the grey areas in which the brand needs to focus and improve. It also helps in pulling out the competitors’ reports as to how they are perceived among the media and media outlets. For conducting an effective and successful media auditing, a strategic plan^[1] and its implementation are really crucial.

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