TV Advertising - What is the smart way? | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

11 years ago

Unless you have money to burn, and you are just doing it for fun, forget TV.

Ten second spots will get lost over the time frame you describe--a complete waste. 10s are best used in a one to three day "blitz" that runs through the whole broadcast day. For example, a furniture store is having a sale. They run 10s once an hour from 6am-8pm (no primetime) Thu-Sat with urgent copy to drive foot traffic.

You can get value from 10s in prime if you run it twice or more per week in the same break over at least 3 months, preferably 6 months. It has to run in a show that is a perfect match for your product. This plan will slowly build up brand awareness over time.

I'd rather run radio in tandem with pre-recorded messages, direct mail, Facebook local, PPC, content and social media marketing.

That all said, you are putting the cart before the horse. What is your target demo? Determine your target demo first, and then decide on the media and the copy.

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Harshadewa 11 years ago

Thank you so much for the reply mate. This is a classified ad website.
I guess target audience for this will be both male, female, at least over 18 years olds. Basically everyone who's looking to sell something. That means most of the people who watch TV at that time-adults. (in here Sri Lanka I guess)

I was thinking about showing it everyday or once per 2 days. But you say even showing it once per week can work too (assuming its the right audience). I think I can achieve this.

Anyway I understand there are always risks. Theoretically these things may be right, but there's always chance that things could go wrong practical.

I would like to know if there are any more suggestions. Thanks
- Thanks
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misterme

11 years ago

I don't think the decision is based on how quickly the funds get burned.

Can we back up for a second?

You have a classified ads website. Are you looking for people who want to place ads or people who'll respond to ads? Or do you simply want traffic, period.

Are you looking for media exposure to generate traffic or do you have a specific offer to get them to "raise their hands"? Has your offer been tested in other media to see how it converts?

In other words, there are several ways you could go about this before you do a spend on tv ads, and even with tv ads there are several ways you could go about this, and so do you have all this front work prepared? Because if you do then that obviously helps determine the funding.

Thanks
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Harshadewa

11 years ago

Misterme,

First I want to build an audience. So this will be a totally free classified ad website. I want people to put their ads on my site. I need more traffic so there will be more ads on the site. After an year or so I will add paid features.

Im looking for media exposure to gain traffic. More people know about this site, more will visit it and hopefully more will post ads.

Im still developing the site. Its not launched yet.

I know the exact advertising rates for programmes I need.
My question is if I have a 10000 budget, how frequent I should display the ad to increase the effectiveness?

Thanks

Thanks
1 reply

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misterme

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Harshadewa

Misterme,

First I want to build an audience. So this will be a totally free classified ad website. I want people to put their ads on my site. I need more traffic so there will be more ads on the site. After an year or so I will add paid features.

Im looking for media exposure to gain traffic. More people know about this site, more will visit it and hopefully more will post ads.

Im still developing the site. Its not launched yet.

I know the exact advertising rates for programmes I need.
My question is if I have a 10000 budget, how frequent I should display the ad to increase the effectiveness?

Thanks

What I'm hearing is that you're not prepared to spend that 10000.

This is tantamount to what you're saying:

I want to invite strangers over for dinner.

I don't know what to say to have strangers accept my invitation.

What temperature should I heat the pan to cook the meal?

Look, television is only the broadcast medium.

It's the message and the audience that counts.

If you run an ad that's not effective, then it's not going to get more effective if you run it more frequently.

You'll just lose all your money.

You need to know that you have an ad that pulls, first.

That's my final piece of advice to you.

Thanks
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Harshadewa

11 years ago

Thanks for the reply mate.

So how do I know if the ad is effective? Should I hire someone who has knowledge in marketing? Should I hire a advertising company to make the ad? Instead of buying the big ad spots should I try some small ad spots first to see how it performs?

What are your suggestions?

Thanks a lot

Thanks
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swilliams09

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Harshadewa

Thanks for the reply mate.

So how do I know if the ad is effective? Should I hire someone who has knowledge in marketing? Should I hire a advertising company to make the ad? Instead of buying the big ad spots should I try some small ad spots first to see how it performs?

What are your suggestions?

Thanks a lot

Frankly on a local level, most people do not test ads at all. I have one client who will test multiple sales and discounts. If his phone doesn't ring after a day or two for his offer, he changes to a new offer until he finds one that works.

Thanks

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joe golfer

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Harshadewa

Thanks for the reply mate.

So how do I know if the ad is effective? Should I hire someone who has knowledge in marketing? Should I hire a advertising company to make the ad? Instead of buying the big ad spots should I try some small ad spots first to see how it performs?

What are your suggestions?

Thanks a lot

Harshadewa - here's my advice: Forget TV for now. I don't care if you live in Sri Lanka or London. It takes a lot more than $10,000 USD to do it right--doesn't matter if it is cable, satellite or over-the-air. This is based on my experience selling hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of TV advertising from little local stations to the biggest networks in the world. If you go out and waste $10,000 or 10,000 rupees, I'm going to cry in my oatmeal.

Slow down and listen to what misterme is saying.

Here's what I would do:

Get the site up and running. Work the kinks out. Run some free ads for select clients. Just launch it, and then fix and improve it. Optimize the living s*** out of it.

Determine your CORE target demo. If you could only reach one group of people, who would it be? Women or Men? How old? How much money do they make? Where do they live? Is this a local site, or all across Sri Lanka?

Determine your USP that sets you apart from a million other classified sites.

Then start small scale promotion with social media, blogging, forum posting, comment marketing, link building, SEO and even simple flyers.
How to use Social Networking sites to promote a Classified site in India ?

It's not you can't afford major media. It sounds like you can. It's that you want that spending to really create an impact when you do buy TV.

For example, let's say you start your classified site thinking it will appeal mostly to housewives, but it becomes really popular with college students instead.

If you spend too much on major media like TV before your site has evolved somewhat, you will lose big money and I will sob like all the losers at the Academy Awards.

Thanks

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Claude Whitacre

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Harshadewa

Thanks for the reply mate.

So how do I know if the ad is effective? Should I hire someone who has knowledge in marketing? Should I hire a advertising company to make the ad? Instead of buying the big ad spots should I try some small ad spots first to see how it performs?

What are your suggestions?

Thanks a lot

You are not understanding what Misterme is saying. How do you know that TV is even the right media? A hunch? Because you watch TV? Are there other ads on TV selling what you are offering? No? Then you are almost certainly going to waste all your money.

Have you exhausted every other media? Online? PPC? Find successful sights like the one you are doing. How are they getting people to visit and convert?

I am constantly amazed to see complete neophytes willing to throw away large sums of money on "advertising" without any idea how it works.

You are lambs, waiting to be slaughtered.

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misterme 11 years ago

Originally Posted by Harshadewa

So how do I know if the ad is effective?

This is the proverbial "if you have to ask..."

The answer is you already know if it is because you've gotten results already elsewhere.

It has nothing much to do with the fact it hasn't been on tv.

You ran it in other places and it pulled... so it bodes well for mass media because it did well elsewhere.

Should I hire someone who has knowledge in marketing? Should I hire a advertising company to make the ad?

Most ad agencies, probably not.
Go with someone who does "direct marketing."

Instead of buying the big ad spots should I try some small ad spots first to see how it performs?

ALWAYS.

What are your suggestions?

If I were you I'd get the site launched first because anything you do or spend is pointless if you get people coming to the site - and the site's not there or operative.

And my hunch is also if your site's NOT populated with ads people are going to think it's not the place to be.

So I think you need to just get listings and fill up your site and make it look busy and get it working.

And then try to broker some pretty amazing deals through the site.

This means legwork on your part. But with a payoff.

Because as you catalog these amazing deals, guess what? Now you've got stuff you can test to see if advertising these success stories brings in traffic.
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Aaron Doud

11 years ago

Already a bunch of great advice in here. When it comes to TV I have found the following to be true based on my experience and others I know.

Most places that use TV ads have never figured out if TV is the best place for their ad.
Most TV advertisers do no tracking. They have no idea how much business their TV ad brought. In fact many TV ad reps will use any "increase" to justify their clients ad spend. Even if that increase came because of something else.
Thanks to DVRs, bathroom breaks, and snacks the TV audience today does not watch many commercials.

What does this mean for a potential advertiser like yourself?

Advertising is about the right Message (why) targeted at the right Market (who) in the right Media (where). You will be way ahead of your competition if you take the time to figure out who you Market(s) is, what the best Message is to get them to take action, and where (Media) they are most likely to be open to hearing that Message.
Tracking is the key to successful advertising. To be truly successful (vs. lucky) you must track sales (or signups, etc etc) back to advertising. But remember that depending on your campaign it may be multiple sources in conjunction that lead to action. For example they might hear about the car you are selling on the radio, see it on Top Gear, research it online, and Google for the closet Dealer (you). So Google brought them to you but each of those other forms of advertising helped them on the journey to choosing to buy.
The longer your TV spot and the more it "stands out" the more likely you are to get them to watch it. I would never in my life consider a 10 second spot unless it was right before a return to show (likely to be watched). And even then it would have to be an amazing offer. Personally I would recommend 60 seconds myself. Even the 30 second stuff is played out though most disagree with me and the vast majority use 30 seconds. But like i said be different.

I have no idea if TV is right for you and your business. But I can tell you that neither does your account manager at the TV station. His job is to sell you advertising.

So take some time to decide what is best. The worst thing you can do is waste thousands on advertising that doesn't work.

And please remember that the right Media when it comes to TV is more than just TV. It is the right channel, during the right program, at the right time of day and in the right position during the ad break. And this are all things your account manager is only going to bring up in the most superficial way.

Remember it is better to spend two, three, or even more times as much on an ad that reaches your target market than to save money by running the ad at the wrong time.

Advertising is an investment not an expense. Always remember to think about it that way. The absolute worst thing a business can do when it comes to advertising is to set a "budget".

I always use this analogy if you found a man on the street that would trade $10 bills for your $1 bills which would you do?

Give him five $1 bills because that is all you have?
Continue to give him $1 bills until he stopped giving you $10 bills in exchange even if that meant taking the $10 bills you got from him and getting them turned into $1 bills at a store, bank, or etc?

A budget is #1 and it makes no sense. You don't stop advertising just because you hide some artificial budget you created. And if the advertising isn't working you don't keep pouring money into it because you "budgeted" $5,000 for it.

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Neison

11 years ago

Why not test local youtube video ads first?

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Anthem40 11 years ago

Originally Posted by Neison

Why not test local youtube video ads first?

There are some very distinct differences between youtube ads and tv ads. What works for one probably won't work for the other.
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- Neison 11 years ago
  
  I didn't say they were synonymous. I did say TEST.
  
  Youtube can produce results for a low-cost investment. It can be targeted per demographic and location. And regardless of whether your "final" delivery method is TV or not, I'd still try it out.
  
  Originally Posted by Anthem40
  
  There are some very distinct differences between youtube ads and tv ads. What works for one probably won't work for the other.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  Anthem40 11 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Neison
  
  I didn't say they were synonymous. I did say TEST.
  
  Nor did I. The reason that testing wouldn't be beneficial is because there are distinct differences between TV and YT, therefore making test results difficult to apply cross medium.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  95% of IM'ers have great relationships with clients who also advertise offline and with other people. Stop missing out on that cash and leverage into it. PM me if you are an established marketer and want to find out how.
  
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  Harshadewa 11 years ago
  
  I've learned a lot my dear friends. Thank you so much for your help/ advises.
  
  Thanks
  
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RiskTaker

11 years ago

Run long form TV spots 28 minutes. While your production costs is higher, works wonders for lead gen and sales. I had one a few years back that generated 20,000 customers for our company before we sold.

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joe golfer

11 years ago

Long form is even trickier than regular spots, and needs a producer who knows the format inside out. The backend should be in place from the get go, so callers can be funneled into upsells immediately.

Thanks

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NewParadigm

11 years ago

contact radio/TV/print media offering them a compelling story about your industry, something newsworthy and they could do a story on you. (free media)

maybe a consumer reports angle of how people turn household junk into cash during a recession. or how to sell stuff online safely.

TV or newspapers will even do articles on new entrepreneurial businesses.

Just make your pitch something newsworthy for them instead of a "i want free publicity to pitch my biz".

on small town AM radio, my cousin used to DJ and hosted a "trading post" hour. You could pitch radio stations to do this where people call in and offer something for sale and listeners respond. You could help host and base it on your site and sponsor the segment.

Creating content for others to get what you want, is much cheaper and authentic in generating traffic over just buying your way in. Also builds your authority.

Thanks

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Edward W Smith

11 years ago

Here is some advice you didn't ask for but here it is anyway. You are in way over your head with the adverting questions. You need to hire an advertising manager or consultant or at the very least an ad agency for this, before you lose your shirt. OK good luck, and I hope you understand my intent is to help you, not hold you back, Edward Smith.

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ebizman

11 years ago

Youll burn through that budget quick with TV ,, start with online

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TV Advertising - What is the smart way?

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