How to Get a Media Planning or Media Sales Job
If you’re looking at this page, it means you probably know exactly what “media planning” and “media sales” means.
It’s very likely you’ve taken my Introduction to Advertising class and completed the rather lengthy media plan assignment. That means you understand that “media”, in this context, means “where the ads appear.”
A media planner is typically an advertising agency title because they “decide where ads appear” for their large clients. Most large agencies have large media departments full of media planners and buyers. Planners build complex plans outlining exactly when and where ads will appear for each client, complete with costs, creative specs, deadlines, and more. Buyers tend to do a lot of in-person negotiations with large media companies on behalf of their clients who are buying expensive ad placements.
If you’re interested in media sales, then you very well could be on the other side of that negotiation — sitting with media buyers negotiating ad rates on behalf of the buyer’s clients.
Most media sales jobs, though, tend to be at local media companies, like radio and TV stations, newspapers and local magazines. This can be a fun and rewarding career if you like people and like solving business problems. Advertising can be a creative way to address, and solve, business problems.
If you’re interested in either media planning or media sales, then be sure that your Media Plan assignment from my Introduction to Advertising course is uploaded to your online portfolio, or wherever you host your online work. (Yeah, I drone on about uploading this assignment in class, so you’ve probably already done it, right!)
See how Desi Kerr shows her Media Plan assignment from Intro to Advertising class. Scroll down on that page until you see the Lowe’s photo and the words “Media Plan” next to it. Desi links to her initial product and target research paper, and she embeds her final spreadsheets. This assignment helped Desi land media sales jobs after graduation, and she’s now an account executive at Merideth Corporation, a pretty huge publishing company here in the Midwest.
If you’ve already graduated and you feel like you now realize how fun media sales can be, maybe the Media Sales Institute is for you.
Northwest has strong ties with this valuable career-launching program, and I happen to be the campus contact for you! If you want to learn more, be sure to contact me! I want to help you find a job in media planning or media sales!