Media Buyer Career Guide and Counseling

Question: If you want to be aN Assistant Media Buyer and are going to get your Bachelors Degree what should you major in And does anyone know for sure what the average starting/experienced salary is for an Assistant Media Buyer ?

Answer: Business Administration.

Question: what is the job profile of a Media buyer in an ad agency and what are his key responsibilities? what are his duties and job functions for which he is primarily responsible ? what are the key result areas for him ?

Answer: In Print Media, Job Profile of a Media Buyer is to interact between the client (the advertiser) and Printer, being the supplier to the ad agency to get the advertisement printed in the form of Pamphlet, leaflet , flyer, Calendar etc., at the most economical price to get the margin as income for the ad agency, his employer. Job Functions are, with the client already in the pocket with an annual contract, to negotiate again and again with a hand full of printers for the product to be printed to the satisfaction of the client (the advertiser) at the most economical price to earn maximum profit for the advertisement agency. Key Result Areas will be 1.Clients' satisfaction to retain them, 2. to get the job done on time as per clients' desire 3. with good quality to retain the agency's standing in the prospective and existing clients' eye and 4. earn the leverage of good mark up for higher earning to the ad agency.

Question: Who gets to interview and recruit potential candidates for the jobs of Client Service and Junior Media Buyer?

Answer: HR officer

Question: Is a Media buyer a good career? Is a media buyer a good career job?? is it stressful? What do they do? And how's the schooling like to be a media buyer?

Answer: media buyer, ugh i had that, i hate it

Question: what would be the salary for an assistant media buyer in NYC at a big company?

Answer: check out www.dol.gov and pick your state, and look at occupations. hope this helps.

Question: What do you look for in a Media Buyer? I am considering a career in media buying. What kinds of things do people/companies/agencies look for in a media buyer? What are the core competencies?

Answer: We would never hire an outsider as a Media BUyer. You would have to work your way up. Walk into any ad agency and tell them you are ready to work. /

Question: How to get a publication noticed by Media Buyers? I run a small publication - 20,000 print run, estimated 30,000 readers. However, I'm having difficulty attracting attention from advertisers. I understand that all 'brands' use media buyers and advertising agencies. How should one best present a publication to these agencies? I understand it is more useful to be favored by these agencies than their clients, is this correct?

Answer: I would send a complete media kit to the agency's media dept or media director. Make sure that you have all the readership information and circulation breakdown included. If you are audited that is a plus. If you readership and circulation information is surveyed by an independent 3rd party that is a plus. Do a follow up call and set up meetings with the correct buyer or the media planner. Some agencies have the planner buy print media, instead of breaking that task up for print publications. Most planners and or buyers will keep your information on file if there is not a need at the time but will use it for reference when they make up their annual media plan. From there you might make the cut at the beginning or maybe get included sometime within the clients media year, if they can justify the publication. If a client does have an agency it would be better to go to the agency than to go directly to the client, most clients would pass you off to them anyways and have the publication evaluated, since they are paying for an agency with a media dept. Good Luck!!

Question: Advertising people- what are the main differences between account planners/media buyers and sellers? I've been looking at the job descriptions here : http://www.prospects.ac.uk/links/AccPlann , but i find it all so confusing! What are the main differences between the following four worlds in the advertising world. Media planner and buyer, Account Planner and Advertising Executive. Which are the most fun/stressful/rewarding?

Answer: It really depends on the company. Each company has it's own expectations of what your role includes and there are often many different names for the same role, so really they could be the same thing or they could be different. For example, my role with Adwido.com is a community marketer, but other companies might refer to my role as marketing specialist, or marketing director.

Question: What are the functions of a media planner, buyer and an operation guy in an ad agency? Would like to know the scope of work of a media planner, media buyer and media operations person. Who is accountable for what ? who is responsible for what ? in a reporting structure how this flows ?

Answer: A media planner is someone that understands the budget and main target audience goals of the client, and works to plan a year or quarter's worth of placements for that client to help meet their goals and work out the best deals that make sense. A media buyer is the person that then coordinates these buys by coordinating creative delivery between the creative/production department and the publication, works to submit insertion orders in a timely manner, and arrange timely payments. Often though, i've seen these roles combined, that the same person that handles media planning also does the buying, at different levels within their company or media buying agency. So there's many ways to go about finding a media-related job. Because of flow of responsibility, the media buyer is responsible to the media planner, or at least they are responsible to execute the plan as outlined by the media planner. If there's are two different roles, they either might be equal to each other in position with a boss overseeing them or the planner oversees the buyer's responsibilities. Sometimes because one is an ad account function and another is an admin money function, these are linked to different departments. It really all depends on situation. In all my years, I've never heard of the term "media operations person". Sorry. My guess is this sounds like the person in charge of all media operations? I would say they're the head honcho then, but that's guessing.

Question: What does a "media buyer" do? What does the profession involve on a day-to-day basis, and how much does it typically pay per year?

Answer: Deacon Blues is correct, except that I would add that sometimes, they work directly with a company, such as a pharmaceutical company. They advise companies on WHERE and WHEN to place their ads for achieving the communications objectives established. The day-to-day work will likely be detail-oriented as there is a lot of quantitative research to be done. CARD is the reference book, it contains information on all the magazines etc. along with their readership details, demographics, etc. At a higher level, a media executive will be involved in writing out a strategic media plan for the client. This is more interesting work, but still there is a lot of details. Media work is quantitative, not creative like advertising work (i.e. creating TV or print ads). This being said, some small media companies can be quite creative in creating new media opportunity (like the people who created a network of ad spaces in men's bathrooms!). Regarding the pay, don't get your hopes up because it's not fabulous pay. But if you like the work, it should not matter. Good luck!

Question: what do you day to day as a media buyer?

Answer: I have been a TV buyer for 7 years, and here is my normal day. If you have a new buy that you have t oplace, you start by contacting all of the stations and start negotiating based on the parameters of the buy. If you are advertising a female 25-54 product you will be contacting a much different group of sellers then a M12-18. You will spend the day going back and forth negotiating rates and ratings. You probably will have some discrepancies from other campaigns that you have that either spots did not run, or did not run properly or didn't get the ratings that you negotiated. You may also have traffic or accounting discrepancies that need to be resolved.

Question: media buyer/planner job description? please explain to me what this job is about

Answer: At General Motors the media buyer hires the advertising agency, oversees the ads, approves the bills as they arrive, and decides how much will go to print and how much to tv. The planner is more in the Finance Department. /

Question: what is a media buyer?

Answer: A Media Buyer is responsible for purchasing media space or time, as well as developing the campaign and researching how it will be most effective for the client. Their mission is to find a combination of media that will enable the marketer to communicate the message in the most effective manner possible at the minimum cost. For more information see the source below.

Question: half.com, buyer pays for media mail , emails for faster shipping.................? half.com, buyer pays for media mail , emails for Expedited shipping. he says he just saw the estimated delivery time and that he needs it expedited and is asking of me to upgrade him. regular media mail that he paid for will be like 3 dollars expedited shipping FROM south florida to FRESNO, CA will be upwards of 12 dollars.... half.com shipping (pre-agreed) policy is that we will be reimbursed for shipping a FLAT rate 6 or 7 dollars for expedited, sometimes i guess sellers pay a little more and some times they pay a little less then their shipping allowances. But in this very case I KNOW where i have to ship it to, and the buyer chose media mail, now wants me to ship expedited (asked through email) this is a schoolbook we are talking about, and i do understand the persons urgency, what should i do? take the loss or ship media mail as the person paid for? (btw if you havent heard of half.com its a version of ebay) This is a big heavy textbook

Answer: Ask them that you are willing to ship expedited if he sends you the additional funds for shipping. You can ship it via the USPS flat rate priority envelope so no matter how heavy it is you only pay a flat fee. But DON'T ship it priority if he does not pay extra. You can't tell Amazon.com to ship your item expedited if you only paid by media mail -- same with you

Question: how much money do media planners/buyers make? Anyone know how much a senior media planner/buyer with say four to five years of experience makes. Let's say the company employs 30 people and is in a metropolitan city like Atlanta or LA.

Answer: â—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Š 35 yrs exp in adv. Six figures plus. Each group is different. Some also get huge profit-sharing plans and stock. â—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Šâ—Š

Question: How is a media buyers job related to math?

Answer: buyer use # of different medias all include math. Print Circulation #, size of add, frfequency, all make up cost per exposure TV, Neilon ratings, lenght of spot, number of spots== cost per Radio, Arbitron ratings, spot lenght and time etc etc. Math is a very important