Once you have an understanding of the various media and their buying techniques, it�s time to put it all together to a proper media mix in order to make an effective buy for your store(s). In doing this, you also have to decide who should make the media buy, yourself, the Advertising Agency or a Media Buying service. The decision should be based on who has the best clout to make the buy at the lowest cost to the shopping center. However, if an outside agency handles the buy, you should still have a good working relationship with the local media reps. This is advisable in order to know what is going on with your media buys and the local media market as well as to maintain the necessary checks and balances with whoever is making the buy.

If it is you making the media buy, then it�s advisable to learn about the psychology of sales in order to better know how to negotiate. There are plenty of books available on this subject.

Once all the various media options have been explored and evaluated, it�s time to look at all of them together on a spreadsheet and evaluate the effectiveness of each. With limited media budget, it�s impossible to do everything, so you must decide what media makes the most effective buy for you. This depends on what you have decided are your media objectives. Also, it�s important to not spread yourself too thin. Instead of trying to do everything, it�s more important to make sure that whatever media you select, you spend enough money in that particular vehicle to be effective before selecting additional media vehicles.