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TV Advertising - Direct Response Television As Part Of Your Income Plan (Part 1)
Television, or to be more precise, DRTV, is the latest direct marketing tool, and a great opportunity for small businesses. That's because it provides a way to connect with a huge audience directly in their homes and of giving a product demo effectively, efficiently and profitably.
Television, or to be more precise, DRTV, is the latest direct marketing tool, and a great opportunity for small businesses. That’s because it provides a way to connect with a huge audience directly in their homes and of giving a product demo effectively, efficiently and profitably.
Sound good? It really is. Direct Response Television is a direct marketing system that requires you to produce and broadcast TV commercials. These advertisements can range anywhere between 15 seconds to as long as 30 minutes. You can elect to hire a celebrity host to give a product or income plan demo or you may opt for more of a ‘slice of life’ feel, where one of your happy customers tells the audience how they benefited from using your product and explains how to use it.
This direct marketing method is effective because it enables you to give a product demonstration and explain the features and benefits to your target audience, especially when you are launching a brand new product. This not only aids in building confidence in your product, but you are also able to inoculate against probable customer ‘objections.’ A recent survey by Response Magazine showed product demonstration as the primary reason (33%) for DRTV purchases, followed by cost at 16%.
DRTV marketing is a specialized form of direct marketing. Similar to general television commercials, these television infomercials are similarly designed to create interest in your product or income plan; they are different in that they ask the consumer to take action right there and then. If the customer is really impressed by your product, they will immediately call the phone number appearing on their TV screen, and make the purchase. That makes it very simple for you to quantify the effectiveness of your ad. Either you make sales or you don’t!
DRTV has proven wildly effective for products such as fitness equipment, household items, cosmetic and healthcare products, and collectibles. But you can also engage in this system process if your product has a wide appeal, has benefits that can be shown peresuasively, and is attractively priced. The key is to offer up a scenario or a problem that your audience can relate to, and then demonstrate to them how your product or service can satisfy that problem.
Another valuable element of this direct marketing technique is that just like niche programming on broadcast TV, you can run your ad at time slots that cater to your target audience. For example, if you choose to target your carpentry tool kit at men who will likely use it on their jobs, go for a nighttime or a weekend slot when your target audience is more likely to have the time to actually see the infomercial.