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media buying software
Extra keystrokes but you save thousands yearly
By David Everitt
Media buying software for radio and TV is a must for large agencies and media buying services, and the price of these services fully reflect that fact.
They are expensive, running as much as $8,000 or more a year.
But what about smaller agencies that can't afford that sort of annual cost?
That was the problem faced several years ago by Vernon Mottert, then head of a small media buying service St. Louis.
Mottert decided to solve the problem by writing his own software.
“I needed software to handle the various functions of the broadcast buy,” Mottert says, “but I wasn’t handling enough buys to justify the expense of the systems that were out there."
Mottert's challenge was to come up with a simpler software that the average buyer in a small shop could master to help in ordering media, trafficking and invoicing.
"I was very good at Excel, so I decided to write a software for myself in Excel. I could see this would work for other media people because most of them are also already familiar with Excel and would be able to operate it easily.”
The system Mottert came up with is considerably less expensive than the dominant brands. Programs such as Strata, Media Management Plus and Tapscan, can cost as much as $7,000 or $8,000 a year.
The Mottert Systems program goes for $2,180 a year.
One of the principal reasons for the big difference in price is that the major programs include ratings data files from Arbitron or Nielsen, and Mottert Systems does not.
Mottert believes that smaller buyers can operate without these files. He says that they can get this information on a case by case basis from such sources as the stations involved in the buy, then input it by hand.
What the Mottert software does include is a variety of functions. According to Mottert, it allows the buyer to enter the buy specifications, compose and schedule the buy, and generate orders and reports.
The software, he maintains, “speeds up and organizes the buying process.”
It can also serve as an archive, allowing a user to check, for instance, on the price of a buy a couple of years after the fact.
A very new product, the Mottert Systems software first went on sale this spring. So far, the company has not even gotten its webpage up and running. But buyers who are interested in the program can order evaluation copies that will allow them to test the product for 30 days.
Mottert can be reached at (314) 428-2459.
Mottert’s target companies are small to medium agencies.
“The companies that are most likely to benefit from this software are either those buyers who don’t have any software of this kind, or those who spent a lot of money on one of the other products a few years ago and are now looking to fulfill those functions with a lot less money.
“For the most part, the software is designed for agencies with one to three planner/buyers, with under $15 million in billing.”
June 18, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-David Everitt covers technology for Media Life, writing from Huntington, New York.
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