InfoTech offers a wide variety of solutions for marketing, advertising and e-commerce. InfoTech has built custom applications for some of the industry’s leading companies. Our team has the necessary experience to understand your business, ask the right questions and tailor a solution that addresses your unique needs.
One of our more popular systems is our Web-based Media Management System (MMS) which offers a unique user experience, providing a state-of-the-art, Web-based solution for direct response media agencies and advertisers.
With capabilities to handle broadcast, print, Internet and other media, long form, short form and per inquiry are all easily managed, from initial planning, buying and traffic to data import, results analysis and export to your accounting system. All of these features are wrapped in a user friendly and logical workflow methodology, which makes the process of managing your direct response campaigns as easy as a walk in the park.
MMS is carefully designed to capture all stages of the media campaign, from start to finish, and provides both buyers and management with all the appropriate tools to manage and execute the campaign faster, better and cheaper, while leveraging on state-of-the-art technology.
The below illustrates the typical direct response business cycle of setup,execution, adjustments and accounting.
- CAMPAIGN SETUP AND
- PLANNING
- MEDIA BUYING
- AND PI
- TRAFFIC
- SPOT AND RESPONSE
- DATA IMPORT
- CALL SOURCING
- REPORTING AND
- ANALYSIS
- RATING ANALYSIS
- ACCOUNTING
Initial Setup and Budgeting:
Enables you to set up a media campaign to market a product or service towards specified
demographics within a certain time frame. The budgets (campaign-level or weekly) can be
defined for specific markets and stations.
Response Data, Metric and Benchmark Definition:
Enables you to define what kind of response data will be gathered and, ultimately, reported
on. This can include calls, orders, leads, upsells, multi-pays, rush shipping or anything else
that applies. You can also set campaign benchmarks such as allowable cost per order, cost
per call, MER (media efficiency ratio) and other metrics.
Media Planning (Prebuy):
The planning module enables you to create various prebuy scenarios, analyze them based
on ratings data and other factors, and then automatically activate the scenario that best
suits your campaign goals. Activating a scenario converts that scenario into actual media
buys, ready to be sent to stations.
MMS’s media buying and PI contract capabilities enable you to execute some of the key
functions required for every successful media campaign.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Enter and modify short form and long form buys
- Import buys from various sources, such as Strata, WideOrbit’s WO Central, Excel sheets and other data files.
- Quickly revise or cancel media buys that are not meeting expectations
- Automatically create and send insertion orders,
- revisions and cancellations
- Create PI (or “cost per action”) contracts
- Many Others
These key functions are achieved in various
MMS modules listed below, to name a few:
- Short Form
- Long Form
- Per Inquiry
Short Form –
You can schedule all aspects of a short-form media buy, including flight dates, rate, daypart, frequency, programming, payment and billing details. Daypart and rate history is saved for each station and length, to facilitate easy entry of new buys. The ratings preview gives you a quick look at expected branding impact.
Long Form –
You can schedule all aspects of a longform media buy, including flight dates, rate, daypart, lead in and lead out programming, payment and billing details. Daypart and rate history is saved for each station and length, to facilitate easy entry of new buys. The ratings preview gives you a quick look at expected branding impact.
Furthermore, you can treat long-form media as “inventory,” as is common in the direct response business. This allows you to buy blocks of long-form media in advance, and then schedule it for clients as needed.
Per Inquiry –
With MMS, you can set up “PI” arrangements with clients and stations, in which various response types (orders, upsells, etc.) trigger a specific charge to the advertiser and payment to the station. You can send periodic reports to stations, showing how much money they are owed, and to the advertiser, showing how much payment is due, based on response data.
MMS Traffic Capabilities
MMS’s traffic capabilities allow you to execute some of the key functions required for every successful media campaign.
These include, but are not limited to:
Populate available 800#’s in inventory
Assign 800#’s, URL’s and tape codes to media
Distribution of traffic instructions
Distribution of dubbing instructions
Import of aired spot data from a variety of sources, including
Teletrax, BVS, Nielsen Sigma and Media Monitors.
Import of response data from just about any source, including
West, LiveOps, O’Currance, Dial 800, Listen Up Español and
many, many others.
Sourcing of response data to aired spots
Many others…
The key functions are achieved in various
MMS modules listed below, to name a few:
– Toll Free Inventory
– Spot and Response Data Import
– Buyers Screen
– Matchback
Toll-Free Inventory: With the 800 inventory feature, you can import available phone numbers from various call centers and reserve them for specific media as needed.
Buyers Screen:
The MMS Buyers Screen provides a quick snapshot of media schedules, airings and response. This screen also allows manual insertion or adjustment of aired spots and quick identification of “problem” airings. (Spots that aired outside of the scheduled daypart, or in excess of the scheduled frequency, appear red and with a default cost of $0.)
Automatic Import of Spot and Response Data :
With MMS, you can easily import data each day, accommodating a variety of file formats
sent by different vendors. Spots or responses which do not match valid codes are captured
in separate “Exceptions” screens, where you can properly source them.
Matchback
This feature automatically sources response data to stations and spots, based on many
factors. These include phone number, URL and time and location of the response. This
is especially helpful with vanity numbers. You can also set sourcing options for individual
campaigns.
MMS Customizable, Dynamic Reporting Capabilities –
MMS’s customizable, dynamic reporting capabilities allow you to optimize your media buying strategy and justify media spending to advertising clients. Furthermore, if you are a media agency, you can give limited reporting access to your advertising clients, providing them with their own usernames and passwords. Some of the key reporting functions include, but are not limited to:
– Measure media performance by a variety of metrics, including
cost per call, cost per order, cost per lead, MER or anything else
you can define
– Break out media performance by several factors, including
market, station, daypart, creative, media length, buyer and many
more
– Create your own report formulas
– Analyze media performance not only in terms of response, but
also by ratings
– View media schedules and compare to actual airings
– View accounting transactions and identify media not yet billed
to your clients or paid to stations
– For per inquiry or “cost per action” contracts, report on
payouts owed to stations and payments due from clients, based
on response volume
– Identify media airings that ran too close together, based on
required separation rules
– Pinpoint media airings that are considered doubtful, due to low
response volume
– Create, name and save your own unique report layouts for
repeated use
– Export reports to Excel for further modification
– Email reports to interested parties
– Many others…
These key functions are achieved in various MMS
modules listed below, to name a few:
Flex Report, Predefined Reports, Graphical Reports
Flex Report:
With the Flex Report, your own customized report designs require a simple, one-time setup. Each design can be given a unique name and then selected from a list when running future reports.
Predefined Reports:
The predefined reports in MMS are easily created with just a few clicks and offer a wide variety of campaign information. A few examples include:
- Daily Analysis
- Station Analysis
- Creative Analysis
- Daypart Analysis
Graphical Reports:
The graphical reports in MMS present critical campaign data in an easy to understand graphical output. These include the following reports:
- Pie Charts
- Bar Charts
- Line Graphs
MMS Accounting Capabilities
MMS’s accounting capabilities allow you to leverage on media data already in MMS, in order to save time recording transactions, tracking credits and populating your accounting system with A/R and A/P data.
The accounting functions of MMS include, but are not limited to:
– Set client commission and agency discount
for each media schedule
– Record invoices from stations and other media vendors
– Electronically import station invoices in AAAA format
– Reconcile station affidavits
– Pay stations and other media vendors
– Invoice clients
– Receive payments from clients
– Manage and apply prepaid credits
– Record refunds from stations and other media vendors
– Issue refunds to clients
– Batch export transactions to your accounting system
– Many others…
These key functions are achieved in various MMS modules listed below, to name a few:
- Station Statement Module
- Client Statement Module
- Credit Management Module
- Reconciliation Module
- Accounting Export Module
MMS Advertiser Portal
If you are a media buying agency, MMS offers a reporting portal for your clients, which allows you to selectively give them access to reports. This allows your clients to run their own live reports, thus saving you a great deal of time in answering their inquiries and preparing reports for them.
The Technology Behind MMS
MMS’s SaaS Platform
MMS is a fully Web-based system, which means you can use it from any place where you have Internet access. MMS is hosted on InfoTech’s SAS 70 Type II data center, with fully redundant, load-balanced HP servers. You can access MMS from any location with your user name and password.
Technologies incorporated in MMS:
– SQL Server database
– ASP pages that utilize VBScript and JavaScript
– Visual Studio
- C#2010
- .NET Framework
- LINQ
- Telerik
- Microsoft Office
- Interaction with Web services, including RESTful architecture
- Microsoft Data Transformation Services
- Microsoft CDO
Why Use MMS?
Increased Bottom-Line Success –
It’s simple: MMS shows you what works and
what doesn’t. This allows you to focus your
advertising budget on the media, creatives
and call centers that make you money. MMS
gives you this information in a timely manner,
so your media strategy can be adjusted on
a day-to-day basis. The end result is more
profitable direct response campaigns.
Greater Contribution from Your Top People –
You’ve heard it before: a successful
organization starts with great people.
You need your best people to use their
intelligence and creativity to advance your
business goals, rather than spending it on
repetitive and routine tasks. MMS helps you
achieve this by automating such tasks as data
import, response matching, creating and
sending media orders, traffic and dubbing
instructions, payables, receivables, reporting
and more. Countless hours of manual data
entry and struggling with spreadsheets are
eliminated.
Web Platform Allows Use from Anywhere –
Whether you host MMS yourself or let InfoTech
host it for you, MMS’s SaaS platform allows
you to manage your DR campaigns from
anywhere. All you need is Internet access
and your name and password.
Flexibility –
While MMS is a powerful, turnkey solution
straight “out of the box,” it is also built
with flexible technology that supports
customization to your needs. For example, if
one of your clients requests a unique media
report, InfoTech’s software development
team is ready to tailor MMS to your
requirements.
System Evolution –
MMS is constantly evolving, with new features
and benefits added each year. The InfoTech
team is constantly in touch with its clients
and others in the direct response industry,
soliciting feedback and keeping abreast of
developing trends. This plays a large role in
shaping the growth of MMS.
Stability –
Not only is MMS the best direct response
management system in the market, but it is
backed by a stable company. As a Microsoft
Certified Partner offering systems and
services to a diverse range of industries,
InfoTech has weathered periodic downturns
and changing market conditions over the
years. Our management team of consists of
10 professionals with more than 200 years of
combined experience in the IT field. Most of
these managers have been with InfoTech for
more than 10 years.
