Bucket Media guides clients through fast-changing landscape

The Internet has radically changed the advertising business, and with new ways to reach customers popping up almost every day, Bucket Media President Keri Tipton said modern marketing plans need to reflect the growing diversity.

“It’s all about the media mix, and making sure that mix works together. A lot of time people will choose one form of media and just try to do that, and the mix is very important. They all compliment each other,” she said.

Tipton’s media planning and placement agency will celebrate its second anniversary in October. Housed in a collection of red offices at 1123 Wilkes Boulevard Suite 420, Bucket Media was itself born of a birthday.

“I was about ready to turn 40, and I always wanted to open my own company — something in the media world,” Tipton said. “It’s really been a dream of mine since I got in the arena of advertising and media” in Boulder, Colo.

The seven-employee agency aims to help guide its clients through a changing media landscape. Tipton suggests clients keep an open mind when it comes to marketing plans.

“That is the benefit of using us. We look at every form of media and all the different ideas and we put together the best plan based on budget and demographic,” she said.

Effective marketing is a numbers game, she said, but efficiently reaching people is progressively more challenging given the fractured nature of the media universe.

“It’s getting increasingly harder to reach younger people via just traditional media,” said Emily Price, media buyer for Bucket Media. There is a generational gap with advertising, Price said. Newer Internet-based services like the social networking site Facebook and other outlets are sometimes not even on the media radar for clients.

That’s where Bucket Media comes in.

“It’s our job to help them, make them aware of those things,” Price said.

Bucket Media helps concentrate their clients’ marketing plans by focusing on the clients’ target demographic through subscription ratings services, including Arbitron, Nielsen and ABC Audit, Tipton said.

The company has access to ratings across the nation, and uses software allowing refined breakdowns of radio and television numbers by factors like zip code or county.

“We can really hone in on who they’re after,” Tipton said.

But its not just ratings subscriptions and software that keep the clients coming back, Tipton said. Customer service and working ensure a client’s money is used effectively is important to Bucket Media.

Employees sit down and talk with clients about their marketing budgets, working to determine who the company is trying to reach before putting a strategic media plan together.

Emily Thoroughman, vice-president for administration for the Columbia-based lawn service company Atkins Inc., has been a client for about two years.

Thoroughman said she would “absolutely” recommend Bucket Media’s services.

“Mainly they simplify my life a great deal,” she said. “I sit down with them, and they present the information to me, and it’s one meeting and it’s done.”

The company has a strong client base in the Midwest, Tipton said, particularly in the education and health-care fields. Other area clients include William Woods University and the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives.

Advertising budgets are a little down due to the current economic downturn, Tipton said, but it hasn’t really hurt the agency.

“We have noticed some people will cut back a little bit, but it doesn’t affect our business because we can go anywhere through out the United States and get clients,” she said. “We’ll go into new markets” to prospect and secure new clients.

Although Bucket Media is looking to expanding into markets such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Omaha, Neb., Tipton said the company remains faithful to its hometown, offering incentives to its employees to work with local not-for-profit and community organizations.

“We feel like we have to help our people in our backyards,” Tipton said. “When someone comes to us (from Columbia), we normally won’t turn someone away even if they have a smaller budget.”