Media buying is more complex than a lot of people think at first; which is why a lot of people fail to hit the nail on the head with their media planning efforts. Effective media planning consists of several elements: finding the right media to advertise in, positioning yourself within that advertising media to reach your target market, strong negotiation skills and the ability to monitor and track results and analyze them to fine-tune your campaign.

Does media buying still sound easy? Honestly, it's not – which is why most businesses don't try to go it alone with their media planning efforts and go to the professionals. There are advertising agencies and consultants who provide media buying services; people who know advertising media inside and out and can get your company the placements it needs to reach the right audience at the best possible rates.

You could do ahead and try to do this all yourself, but it's going to take up quite a bit of your time – time which could be much better spent elsewhere. It's usually a much better idea to leave the media buying to an advertising agency that has a track record of getting results for their clientele. Choose your advertising agency wisely. An agency which does a great job with media buying and other services is a valuable partner to have. Meet with agencies and look through their portfolios until you find an agency that offers the expertise and the services your company needs.

Whether you're trying to plan a campaign of newspaper advertising, radio advertising, online advertising or all of the above, assess the reach of each type of advertising media has in your target market. The next step in your media planning is to tailor your advertisements to the media used in the campaign. Remember, we warned you it wasn't necessarily easy!

Advertising costs vary depending on the media you choose. Internet advertising is relatively inexpensive compared to other media, though the total cost depends on whether you're using banner ads or pay per click (PPC)advertising and how many impressions or clicks your campaign includes and/or how often you want your ads to appear. PPC is easy to monitor, track and fine tune (and you can set the budget to ensure you don't overspend), making it one of the easier media buying tasks, relatively speaking.

National newspaper advertising and magazine advertisements, among other consumer focused print media are more costly. Magazine and newspaper advertising are great for consumer awareness and as a branding or corporate identity vehicle and as such should be considered in your media planning.

Outdoor advertising, including billboard advertising and mobile billboards can make a big impact, but in terms of media buying is a little more challenging. In depth, longer-term demographic information will be required to get the best results out of your outdoor advertising placements.

The most challenging part of your media buying strategy is broadcast advertising. Radio advertising and television advertising are among the most expensive advertisements to produce and purchase placements for. Radio, however is becoming a more cost effective medium with local stations especially often providing very reasonable rates for packages including the costs of production and planning.

Media buying can be a puzzle; but it doesn't have to be a conundrum for your business. Media buying is one of the things advertising agencies specialize in. Some things really are best left to the professionals – and placing media buying and planning into the hands of experts ensures more effective campaigns and lets you get back to running your business.