Welcome to the first in a series of regular blogs that I’ll be writing, to help open up the world of barter and its benefits to a wider audience.
So what is barter? I like to describe it as turning something that a client doesn’t want into something that they do! It’s essentially a different way of paying for media to create a margin which is then shared with clients and benefits everyone in the chain, including agencies and media owners.
Barter can work in many different ways, from inventory deals that facilitate the sale of surplus product in return for media inventory to pure cash barter, where opportunities are identified in media plans and budgets to create extra value to reinvest back into media plans or fund other client objectives.
In all instances, the barter model is completely risk free for clients and fully auditable. The media price and quality is unaffected as the barter agency doesn’t buy the media cheaper, it just pays for it in a different way to create a return on media investments.
For a smaller agency, this margin can help to give a competitive edge when pitching for new business and offers an additional service and solution that the client may not have come across before. With a market exceeding £500 million, the importance of barter is ever growing.
After the challenges of this year, everyone needs to ensure that they maximise every bit of value and return from their 2021 media investment, so if you are an independent agency that has yet to explore barter as an opportunity, why not get in touch and see how I can help? I’m so confident that my services will add value that I’m happy to work on a no trade, no fee basis, offering you a risk-free way to assess barter as part of your 2021 media mix.
avvy@barterconsultancy.com