Reconciliation: Getting What You Pay for

A huge part of our media philosophy at Mudd Advertising is creating plans that are customized to each client individually. We take pride in being able to deliver a plan designed to make their advertising a huge success and ultimately increase their sales. This is done largely through our survey process, where we have each client’s customers fill out a survey either through email blasts, website visits, or in person at the business location. With these surveys, we are able to break them down even further and see exactly who is listening to what radio stations and network TV and cable programs, among many other features outside of the media department. Once we have collected this information, we begin to put together our customized plan. We buy the stations that are identified as the top stations according to the customers that are actually visiting the stores – not what is “guesstimated” to be the best station in that specific client’s location. Once we put the order together, we expect to receive exactly what we pay for; exactly what we ordered. We are able to crosscheck what we ordered with what was delivered by the stations each month through a process called “Reconciliation”. Reconciliation is a huge part of our department and a huge retention factor for our clients. We reconcile invoices every month, and we do this largely for the benefit of the client. We take the invoices that we receive from the stations and compare them to our original purchase order. When we come across errors where something does not match up, the client does not pay for these discrepancies. When the stations charge us more than what we ordered, the client does not pay for these discrepancies. When the stations do not give us everything that we ordered and short us spots, we do not require the client to pay for something they did not receive, and instead, that money is refunded directly back to the client to do what they please with. Ideally, we would like the client to reinvest that back into the media, but we let them make that decision. This practice is a tremendous benefit for our clients and allows us to hold stations accountable for not delivering exactly what they said they would deliver. On the same note, it also enables us to report back to the clients about the stations that are performing up to expectations, opening the door to continue doing business together. It keeps us all on the same page and ensures that the client’s success and happiness is our number one priority.