You can have the best media contacts in the world and the best story angle on earth but the person who’s going to help you get the most mileage out of any media activity you’re planning is the media buyer assigned at your agency or your media buying service to spend your media dollars.

Of course, your media buyer has to be a smart one, not a hack. I have been fortunate enough to work with some of the best media buyers in the New York advertising community over the years, professionals who have worked closely with me to maximize our communications exposure well beyond a simple talk show placement or an article in a publication.

Media buying isn’t only about buying media—often it’s about promotion and cross promotion that blends into public relations.

The economy is tight right now but television and radio networks and stations will still offer advertisers extra perks in return for spending. And your media buyer knows what those perks are.

Here are just a few your media buyer can pursue.

If you’re holding an event and you’re using radio advertising to promote it, ask your buyer to ask the station if you can provide the jocks with background information to mention the event on air. Ask if you can have remote, live coverage of the event-particularly if it’s running more than one day.

If you’re doing television advertising—particularly on sports networks, the jocks and the advertising people have relationships with athletes you can tap. Ask for personal appearances by the jocks and the athletes at your events. And use those appearances to score points with your target audiences and with your customer. Networks like ESPN and MSG sponsor special trips for clients to professional pre-season sports training camps. Ask the media buyer to see if he or she can wheedle some invitations for your clients and their clients.

Ask your media buyer if he or she has other customers who would like to cross pollinate with you. A local hotel or restaurant might wish to donate dinners and stays for a drawing or sweepstakes you are holding in return for exposure on air and in your commercials.

Some radio stations have camera crews and post video on their websites. Others are doing podcasts for clients. If you’re buying media from those stations, see what the potential is to get video or podcasts for your products. Work out a credible reason why they should do this.

Weather reporters and meteorologists are always looking for strange and interesting settings to do remote weather reports. Is there something about your business or your client’s business that would make a good backdrop? If you’re buying media from that station ask your buyer to broach the idea to the station manager. I recently had nine segments on Fox News in New York when the A.M. weatherman did a remote from a commercial driver training school where college graduates who’d lost their jobs were learning to drive 18-wheelers. In the last and final weather report for the morning, he drove out of the picture at the wheel of one of the big trucks.

Media buyers tend to know what promotions, gimmicks and added value opportunities there are at print and broadcast outlets. Make friends and find out how you can stretch your own PR efforts.

Not everyone can afford to hire an on-staff public relations professional or pay for an outside public relations counsel. And most marketing people in small or medium sized companies lack the training and experience to do effective public relations as a part of their overall marketing strategy.

Sorry, folks, I’m an ex-daily newspaper reporter and have been a public relations agency counsel for more than 30 years. You may think you can, but the vast majority of you lack the appropriate skills.

If you’re a member of a professional or industry trade organization, why don’t you encourage or demand that your association does it for you? Let me give you an example of how that can work.

Right now, we represent a major state wine organization with 35 winery members selling products within their state. We provide overall branding support and public relations for the industry, touting the quality of the product and its producers. No big surprise, right?

But we also support the public relations efforts of EACH individual winery as part of our service. When an individual winemaker wants to promote an event, we provide publicity and counsel. When the organization sponsors a statewide event, we provide media relations support to each individual winery in its market area. This support is covered in the monthly retainer of the association. Members who have embraced the program have seen dramatic results in profitability and exposure. And they are taking the information developed as news releases and media alerts and posting the content on their websites, using it for simple direct mail and even incorporating it into simple ads.

Non profs and trade organizations are always looking for new ways to serve existing members and lure new ones into the fold. But how many non profs or trade organizations—particularly ones with small and medium-sized companies—have thought about doing THIS for their members?

It makes perfect sense, particularly for smaller trade organizations whose members don’t have the financial means to mount their own continuing public relations campaigns. A modest monthly retainer for agency public relations can easily cost $3,000 and up. For that same amount, you can be covering the public relations program for your organization’s overall industry branding AND support your members with their individual efforts.

If you’re a non profit or a member, think about what it might do for your organization and its members.

We guide them just as we would guide any singular client in developing their campaigns. And we provide them with timely, media relations support for their activities. Not every agency can do this. You inevitably need an agency staff with journalism experience to be able to do this cost efficiently and correctly.

At the end of my last blog I had asked when you’re doing media training for more than one person from the same client, should you let all of them in the room when you’re grilling the first candidate? Or should you conduct that tough first mock interview one at a time?

I’ve done both. Starting with fairly innocuous media questions and working progressively to the toughest ones relevant to the client. I’ve had all the spokesperson candidates in the room at one time and I’ve also done it one by one.

Here are my thoughts. If you put all the trainees in the room, it becomes vividly apparent to the observers how tough and important the task of spokesperson can be. They see themselves on the hot seat and they immediately learn from the fumblings of whoever is going first. You can spend hours teaching people the rules of media engagement. But having them watch a colleague face the media music (or a reasonable facsimile) really drives it home.

However, putting everyone in the room together can be embarrassing, particularly to the poor soul who goes first. Your spokespeople are usually senior executives and it can be embarrassing for the individual on the hot seat. It may make sense to do individual training—but it will never be as impactful on the trainee as watching a peer go through the initial torment of the tough interview.

On the other hand, I have to point out that on several occasions I have watched clients come through with flying colors and even learned a thing or two myself.

One other note in selecting spokespeople, particularly when you are trying to place them on television interviews. Television producers—whether they admit it or not—like to have attractive people on camera. I remember visiting Fox News with one of my agency account executives and a physician spokesperson for a major OTC drug company. The account exec was a middle aged handsome man who had even done some TV commercials. When the producer met the three of us, she lit up and immediately asked if the account exec was the doctor. When the doctor introduced himself, the bulb dimmed.