Building Your Media Strategy

What Is a Media Strategy

A media strategy is a documented plan that defines how your organization communicates through earned, owned, and paid media channels. It answers four fundamental questions: who are you speaking to, what are you saying, where are you saying it, and how will you know it worked.

Many organizations default to reactive media work - responding to press inquiries, posting on social media when someone remembers, and producing content without a clear purpose. A strategy replaces that pattern with intentional action. Every piece of content, every press release, every interview opportunity connects back to defined objectives.

For organizations operating in Canada's bilingual landscape, the strategy must also address language. Ottawa sits at the junction of English-speaking Ontario and French-speaking Quebec, and your media plan needs to account for both audiences - not as an afterthought, but as a core consideration that shapes messaging, channel selection, and timing.

Auditing Your Current Media Presence

Before building anything new, take stock of where you stand. A media audit examines every channel you currently use and evaluates its performance honestly. This includes:

• Website traffic and engagement metrics (bounce rate, time on page, conversion paths)
• Social media accounts across all platforms - follower counts, engagement rates, posting frequency
• Press coverage from the past twelve months, both English and French outlets
• Email marketing performance (open rates, click-through rates, list growth)
• Video content and its performance across platforms
• Internal communications channels and their effectiveness

The audit should also identify gaps. Are you absent from platforms where your audience spends time? Is your French-language content lagging behind your English output? Are there journalists who cover your sector that you have never pitched to?

At Mymspgoat, a comprehensive media audit runs $2,000 and delivers a written report with specific, prioritized recommendations. It typically takes two weeks to complete and includes a presentation meeting to walk through the findings. All fees are subject to 13% HST.

Setting Measurable Objectives

Vague goals produce vague results. A useful media objective is specific, time-bound, and tied to something you can actually measure. Compare these two statements:

• Weak: "Increase our visibility in the media."
• Strong: "Secure four earned media placements in Ottawa-area publications by the end of Q2, including at least one in a French-language outlet."

Good objectives cascade from your organization's broader goals. If the business objective is to grow revenue by 20% this year, the media objective might focus on driving qualified traffic to your sales pages or generating leads through a thought-leadership campaign. If the goal is advocacy or awareness, the objectives lean toward reach, share of voice, and audience sentiment.

Set no more than five media objectives per quarter. More than that and your team's attention fragments, budgets spread too thin, and nothing gets the focus it needs to succeed.

Choosing the Right Channels

Channel selection depends entirely on where your audience actually is - not where you wish they were. A B2B consultancy targeting federal government decision-makers in Ottawa will find more traction on LinkedIn and in policy publications than on Instagram. A consumer brand targeting young professionals across Ontario and Quebec might prioritize Instagram, TikTok, and partnerships with local influencers.

Consider these channel categories:

• Owned media: Your website, blog, email newsletter, podcast, and video channel. These are fully under your control and should form the foundation of your strategy.
• Earned media: Press coverage, interviews, guest articles, and mentions. In the Ottawa market, this means building relationships with outlets like the Ottawa Citizen, Le Droit, CBC Ottawa, and Radio-Canada, as well as sector-specific publications.
• Paid media: Advertising, sponsored content, and promoted posts. Paid channels amplify your message but work best when the content itself is strong.
• Shared media: Social platforms where your content is distributed and reshared by others. Each platform has its own culture and content expectations.

In a bilingual market, every channel decision has a language dimension. Maintaining separate English and French social accounts doubles the workload but ensures each audience gets authentic content rather than awkward translations.

Building a Content Calendar

A content calendar transforms your strategy from a document into daily action. It maps out what content you will produce, when it will be published, on which channels, and who is responsible for each piece.

Start with anchor content - the substantial pieces that take real effort to produce. These might be a monthly blog post, a quarterly video, or a seasonal press campaign. Then fill in supporting content that extends the reach of those anchor pieces: social posts that highlight key points, email newsletters that drive traffic to the full piece, and repurposed clips for different platforms.

A practical content calendar includes:

• Publication dates and deadlines for drafts, reviews, and approvals
• Channel assignments for each piece of content
• Language versions required (English, French, or both)
• Responsible team members for creation, review, and publishing
• Tie-ins to external events, seasons, or industry dates relevant to your audience

Plan at least one month ahead, ideally three. This gives your team breathing room to produce quality work rather than scrambling for last-minute posts.

Media Training for Your Team

Your spokespeople are the human face of your organization in the media. An unprepared interview can do more damage than no interview at all. Media training equips your key people with the skills to handle press interactions with confidence.

Effective media training covers message development, bridging techniques for redirecting difficult questions, body language and on-camera presence, and the specific demands of different formats - a live radio interview requires different skills than a taped television segment or a print journalist's phone call.

For bilingual organizations, training should address the particular challenge of communicating the same message effectively in both English and French, which is not simply a matter of translation but of cultural framing.

Mymspgoat offers a full-day newsroom training session at $2,400 that includes simulated interviews with professional feedback, message development workshops, and a take-home reference guide. We guarantee a 48-hour response time for scheduling. For ongoing support, a monthly retainer at $3,800 provides continuous access to media counsel, including rapid-response support when news breaks.

Measuring Results and Adjusting

Measurement closes the loop. Without it, you are guessing whether your strategy works. Define your key performance indicators at the outset and review them monthly at minimum.

Common media KPIs include earned media mentions and their estimated reach, website traffic from media sources, social media engagement rates, email list growth and engagement, lead generation attributed to media activities, and share of voice compared to competitors or peers in your sector.

The important discipline is acting on what the data tells you. If your French-language content consistently outperforms English on social media, that is a signal to invest more there. If a particular content format generates strong engagement but no conversions, examine whether the call to action is clear or whether the audience on that channel is not the right fit for your offering.

Quarterly strategy reviews keep the plan alive. Adjust your channel mix, content types, and messaging based on what the numbers show, not on assumptions from six months ago.

Hiring a Media Consultant

Not every organization needs a full-time communications team. A media consultant brings specialized expertise without the overhead of a permanent hire. The right time to bring one in is when you recognize that your current approach is not producing results, when you are facing a significant communications challenge, or when you are launching something new and want to get the media approach right from the start.

When evaluating consultants, look for direct experience in your sector, a strong network of media contacts in your market, fluency in both English and French if you operate in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, and a transparent pricing structure.

At Mymspgoat, an initial strategy session runs two hours at $450 and gives you a clear picture of where you stand and what to prioritize. From there, you can engage for specific projects or move to a monthly retainer. A 30% deposit secures your engagement, and we respond to all inquiries within 48 hours. For a closer look at how documentary and video content fits into a media plan, see our guide to documentary formats.

Ready to build a strategy that works? Contact us to start the conversation, or explore our full range of media consulting services.