FAQ's - Media Planner

1. What makes Media Planner superior as a forward planning tool?

Media Planner is the news planning service of choice for over 100 media organisations, news desks, production departments, picture agencies, press & broadcasters. The service accesses a highly categorised database of 30,000 International sources covering 250,000 events.

What makes the service unique is this content in combination with our brand NEW planning platform with the tools to build your own customised planners, the ability to add your own events & supporting information from across your organisation, along with the ability to export to your own databases & systems.

2. Who uses our services?

Communications & PR teams, Researchers, Journalists, Assistant Producers, Producers, Editors, Production Assistants, Unit Managers, Publishers, Copy takers, Forward Planners, News teams.........from within departments across 300+ organizations:

News desks – press & broadcast
Production Companies
PR Agencies
Corporate’ s
Public Bodies
Government
Financial institutions

>> Click here to see client testimonials

3. Why do people use Media Planner?

In the Media

Media Planner is a comprehensive research & planning service for journalists, programmers & executives across the press, news & broadcast programming.

This unique tool allows you to see over 40,000 future events for the coming days, weeks & months that will make the news headlines, influence your programming direction and ensure you keep ahead of the pack…

Many of our clients use the service to enhance or augment existing editorial processes

Research made quick & easy – just the click of a button
Advance notice to book snappers, film crews, satellite time, travel & accommodation – for cost efficient logistics
Sophisticated searches & alerts - finding the information you need quickly & pushing it to you
Share event information, internal & external, across your organisation
Add your own information to events and use the service as a team planning tool
Avoid clashes, conflicts, missing key events – saving time, energy & money
Export the information to your documents & systems to work on at your leisure
Tap in to a team of 20+ editorial staff adding & checking over 1,000 items every day

In PR & Communications:

To spot embarrassing clashes
To find speaking opportunities for their clients
To approach journalists in a timely fashion when they know they’re likely to be covering a story, increasing the chance of gaining maximum coverage for their client
To understand tomorrow’s news agenda today
To aid client retention (by briefing their clients on and impressing them with their understanding of upcoming opportunities / matters that can affect their business)
To gain a comprehensive understanding of future happenings in their client’s sectors
To track future competitor activity
To have an understanding (outside of their clients sector) of media happenings that can impact their clients
To find "light" and "heavy" news days. I.e. The best days to get their stories in the press to gain maximum coverage, and the best days to bury bad news.
To generate creative angles to pitch and win new business.

4. What unique functionality does Media Planner offer?

Media planner provides:

A contacts directory of over 30,000 organisations for research & planning
Tracker tools to monitor an individual or hundreds of organisations
Email Alerts when you choose, from your saved search criteria
Sophisticated searches & alerts - finding the information you need quickly & pushing it to you
My Planner & Team Planner’s to share event information, internal & external, across your organisation
Tools to export the information to your documents & systems, to work on at your leisure

5. What information does the service provide?

We collects content from 30,000 organizations on their future events and activity from the weird, quirky & offbeat to global political & economic summits, elections & indicators. All events are highly categorized and include – date, time, organisation, venue, description, contact details, further information & relevant links.

Typical Events include:

Advertising Campaigns	Exhibitions - Consumer, Government & Trade	News Headlines & Top Stories
AGMs, EGMs & Company meetings	Financial Announcements / Results	Film Premieres & Parties
Anniversaries	Gigs & Festivals	Press Conferences
Award Ceremonies	Industry Highlights	Product Launches
Broker/Industry Conferences	Investor Road shows	Public Sector Tenders
Celebrity Appearances	IPOs	Reports & Surveys
Children & Family Activities	Legislation	Roadshows
Conference Calls	Lifestyle Events	Trading Statements
Conferences - Consumer, Government & Trade	Monthly Statistics	VIP Visits
Court Cases	Music Releases	VIP Visits

>> Click here to download full category list
>> Click here to review content outline

6. Where do we get our information from?

Our Media Planner editorial team source content from across a wide variety of sources, so that you don’t have to!

Every week we:

check press cuttings from around the world
review trade magazines & journals
read thousands of company press releases
research websites & portals – through searches & spiders
canvass & confirm events by telephone
Track & monitor the IR pages of 6,000 global companies
Review daily ‘wire’ and RSS sources

7. How can you be confident of the data quality and accuracy?

Every event in our database is checked and double checked back at source. We have teams of people who check events on various rotas by phone, fax & email. We have CRM systems that track our editorial activity and where event information derived from to ensure you have the most up-to-date & accurate information available.

>> Click here to see our quality control processes

8. What other services are there?

We produce a number of services designed to meet the needs of the professional markets they serve. Our other services include:

- Future News Headlines & Alerts – morning & end of day round ups

9. How can we receive the content?

Content from the service can be provided via the website, as an XML feed, via email alerts or directly exportable as a CSV file. We are happy to discuss individual client requirements.

10. Can I commission content to be built for me?

Yes – ultimately all our content has been built to meet customer requirements. We work with a number of clients on bespoke projects to build the information they need across our areas of expertise – news, politics, entertainments, lifestyle, business & finance. We have an enviable reputation for delivering projects on-time, in budget and generally more cost efficiently than most companies can achieve themselves.

>> For further information please contact us