The 8 Biggest Mistakes Small Business TV Advertisers Make

Transcription

1 The 8 Biggest Mistakes Small Business TV Advertisers Make Avoid These Mistakes And Watch Your Sales Explode! By Brian Baumann

2 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Chapter 1: Mistake #1 - Weak Unique Selling Proposition 4 Chapter 2: Mistake #2 - Unclear Target Customer 6 Chapter 3: Mistake #3 Hiring an Advertising Agency 7 Chapter 4: Mistake #4 Listening To TV Sales Reps 9 Chapter 5: Mistake #5 Important Elements Missing 14 Chapter 6: Mistake #6 No TV Production Planning 15 Chapter 7 Mistake #7 Advertising on Cable TV First 16 Chapter 7 Mistake #8 - Paying Too Much! 17 Conclusion 21 2

3 Introduction Congratulations on your wise decision to seek out this information! Now is the best time in history for small business owners to use television advertising to explode their sales! Airtime and commercial and television production rates are the most affordable they ve ever been! Television adds a level of credibility to you and your business like no other medium can do. Airing :30 second TV commercials to a specific audience of consumers, consistently, has made many a small business owner wealthy! You must look at television advertising as a survival marketing tactic. You cannot exist and grow in business today without including video sales messages (i.e. TV commercials) in your marketing plan. Any business not bringing in new business is going out of business -Warren Buffet Baby Boomers have always responded well to video. You could say they were born in front of television sets. Now, younger consumers (born in front of computer monitors?) are proving equally responsive. Look at the absolute astounding success of YOUTUBE.com. People are attracted to watching VIDEO, whether it is informative, entertaining or just plain bizarre. Notice the YOUTUBE.com craze is not based on sounds (i.e. radio) or still pictures (i.e. newspaper). Today, video is king! 3

4 Chapter 1 Mistake #1 Weak Unique Selling Proposition If you don t have a clear idea of your uniqueness, and why customers should do businesses with you, your TV ad is doomed from the start! After your :30 second commercial airs, what is the one main benefit, promise or solution left imprinted in the viewer s mind? It must stand out and be memorable. Discovering your own unique selling proposition begins with answering the following questions: o Why do people buy from you? Why do people NOT buy from you? o What benefits do customers derive from doing business with you? People buy benefits not features. o What EMOTIONAL benefits do customers derive from doing business with you? Your television commercial can hit the responsive emotional chord like no other ad medium can. o What problem do you solve? o What product or service can you offer that is not being offered in your market? How does your business fill those voids? 4

5 A home decorating center client of mine stars in his TV commercials along with his partner (wife). They know that people have two problems when decorating their homes: 1.) Choosing the right colors, designs and fabrics and 2.) Visualizing how the final design plan will look. So, at the end of their commercial, she says, You ll love the look and he immediately says, We guarantee it. What a strong brand promise or unique selling proposition! They re so confident that after being in business for 35 years that they know all of their customers will be happy. Plus, they visually layout the finished plan on their computer which simulates the customer's room so the final result can be seen before moving forward. Another way to gather ideas for your unique selling proposition is to survey your customers. Have you ever asked your customers why they buy from you? Or, what problems you solve for them? You may be surprised by the answers. Surveying will make sure the benefits and emotional benefits etc you list are the ones that your customer values. Surveying your customers has never been so quick, easy and inexpensive as it is today e.g. This assumes you have an list of your past customers. If you don t have one, start assembling one yesterday! You must give considerable thought and focused exploration to this task of identifying your unique selling proposition. The more finely tuned your unique selling proposition is, the more effective your television campaign will be and all of your marketing for that matter. Also, please do not ignore the benefits that all of your competitors offer that are exactly the same benefits that you offer. Many of your customers come to your business infrequently. If you don t promote the benefits that are painfully obvious to you, but are unknown to your new customers, you loose. Chances are your competitors are not expressing these benefits in their marketing, so you can. 5

6 Chapter 2 Mistake #2 Unclear Target Customer Knowing your target customer, inside and out, is a very important component in planning your TV advertising campaign and is closely aligned with your unique selling benefits. Without realizing just who your potential customers are, you cannot possibly create an effective television commercial. If asked, Who are your target customers, and you answer, Everyone who buys a such and such you are in trouble. You need to drill down and understand the characteristics of your ideal target customer. Here are a few essentials: Age. Try to narrow the age group of your best prospects. Rather than anyone over 25 yrs. Do most of them fall within 25 to mid 30 s, or 25 yrs to late 40 s? Gender. Who makes the decision to purchase your products or services? Who influences the decision? You must be specific in your appeal. It is estimated that females either make the decision of influence the decision for 80 to 90% of all goods and services purchased today. Household Income. Do your best to estimate the income of your target customer. Many times direct questioning will not produce accurate results. Try to categorize the majority of your customers by zip code. You can then research average house hold income in those zips. Occupation. Are your best prospects blue collar, white collar, construction, sales people, business owners, health care workers, retired? Leisure Time Activities. What do your customers do to relax and have fun? This can be important when building your TV script. 6

7 A clear picture of your target is especially valuable when you ask the television station sales people for qualitative and quantitative research on consumers in your market. The more precise you can be with the profile of your target customer, the more successful your television advertising campaign will be. 7

8 Chapter 3 Mistake #3 Hiring an Advertising Agency One of the biggest mistakes a small business owner can make is to believe the only way to reap the benefits of television advertising is through hiring an advertising agency. This is not the case today. Many small businesses will go this route, only to find out later that they had other options available to them which would have ended up being much more beneficial long term. Most ad agencies can t stay in business by helping smaller clients. Their large overhead and other expenses prevent this. Most advertising agencies are proficient at helping very large advertisers with very large budgets use television advertising. Their clients can afford to spend on lavish commercial productions and primetime airtime. You DO NOT need to do either to be highly successful with television advertising on a smaller budget! Advertising agencies are zealous when it comes to attempting to persuade you into signing contracts with them for long term commitments. When you are starting out, this may not be to your advantage. Educating yourself of how to use television advertising effectively on a small budget is the most beneficial route to take. Many business owners in your market handle all aspects of their own television advertising campaigns. They ve discovered the secrets of success and will never need to hire and pay an advertising agency. 8

9 Chapter 4 Mistake #3 Listening To TV Sales Reps Now that I ve dissuaded you from hiring an advertising agency, the temptation is to go directly to the television station to learn from them. Well, not so fast. You DO want to work directly with the TV station reps to purchase airtime and to produce your television commercial but, you don t want to take everything they say as gospel. Here is what you need to watch out for: The product that TV time salespeople have to sell is more perishable than lettuce. If they don t sell their ads, they go up in smoke. When a commercial break passes and commercial slots go unsold, they can t reach back in time and toss them into the future to try and sell again. What does this mean to you as a new television advertiser? It means they are under intense pressure to sell their product! You would think that they would have your best interest at heart and recommend you buy airtime in a few programs that match up with your target customer profile. But the reality is, the sales manager pushes the sales rep. to sell airtime in ALL of their open slots whether they are ideally suited for you or not. You might ask yourself, Why would a rep. advise me to purchase airtime that may not be the best for me? Don t they want to have me be successful so they can build a long term relationship with me? The answer is turnover, and its rampant is media ad sales. The turnover rate is 85% for the average sales rep. in TV, and radio for that matter. That means that 8 out of 10 sales reps will not be calling on you one year from now. It s been that way for as long as I ve been in this industry and you probably know this statistic as well. 9

10 Do not cave in to pressure from the sales rep. to buy because the time may sell-out. While this is true of high demand programming such as prime time or the late news, it is not true when it comes to time periods that you will most likely purchase e.g. early morning news from 5am to 9am, or late fringe or weekend ROS plans etc TV commercial production advice should not be taken from most TV sales reps. Once again, their job is to sell airtime, not help you build an effective commercial. If you ask your rep. to help you with your ad, they will most likely turn you over to their production department, if they have one! Many TV stations have closed these departments due to cost cutting measures. All is not lost. You will find one station that has a competent production director in their department. But, you must direct the director, not have him tell you how to build your ad. So, how will your TV sales rep. benefit you? Your rep. will be a VERY useful source to you as the gateway to valuable qualitative research the station owns. Access to this information is at no cost to you and is worth its weight in gold to you. The stations spend untold thousands of dollars to research companies every year and it s free to you for the asking! Each station subscribes to Qualitative sources such as: o Marshall Marketing o Media Audit o Scarborough Meet with your rep. and have them do a few runs for you based on your customer profile. You ll soon learn how invaluable these tools will be for you! 10

11 Chapter 5 Mistake #5 Important Elements Missing in TV commercial When I travel around the country and am in my hotel room for the evening watching television, I pay close attention to television commercials created by local businesses. What surprises me most, no matter what city I am in, is that the vast majority of these commercials do not contain the basic elements of effective TV ads. Many TV advertisers have been able to meet with some success, with poorly scripted commercials, just by virtue of being on television. Your commercials must contain ALL the elements of effective TV ads for you to reap the most benefit. To avoid mistake #5, here is what you need to do: You must have a script for your commercial. You may want to include a storyboard as well. The script is your blueprint or roadmap to your message. The storyboard contains artists sketches of each separate shot. These two tools script and storyboard can help you craft your message right down to the second. By the way, a :30 second television commercial actually needs to be 29.5 seconds. If you make it longer, the stations will step on the end of it to make a buffer between your commercial and the upcoming one. 11

12 Here is how to create your script. It s very important to begin with the end in mind, so, at the very top of your paper write: o What s in it for me and o Emotional Benefits Keep both of these in mind as you are building your script. All throughout the ad you must show and tell people what is in it for them if they pick up the phone and call you or jump in their car and drive to your store or log on to your website. What is your solution to their problem? What is your promise to them if they do business with you? Television is the only advertising medium that can demonstrate the benefits of your product, service or business in living color with sight, sound, motion, full color and emotion. Seeing is believing, as they say. EX: A specialty furniture store sells Murphy Beds, or Wall Beds as they are commonly known. You know the product it s a bed behind a wall that folds out when you need it. Sometimes the wall is a bookcase that pulls apart and a bed folds down to the floor. What a perfect product for a television commercial! Can t do that on radio or newspaper, can you? Plus, you can have happy customers share personal emotional stories about how happy they are with their purchase. Be mindful to tie features to a benefits that you offer. People buy benefits, not features. EX: Feature = our store carries every possible size nut, bolt, screw, washer, nail and fastener know to man. Benefit = which means to you; you ll save time, money and gas and get your project done sooner so you can spend precious time this weekend with your loved ones on your backyard deck. The more emotion the benefit brings to the customer, the better. 12

13 You have :03 to :05 seconds to capture your customers eyes and ears. You must use everything at your disposal to gain favorable attention IMMEDIATELY! Failure to do so means wasted precious ad dollars. Read your customers mind. Know what will attract them to listen to a message from a business like yours and GIVE IT TO THEM! o Ask a question. o Make a profound statement. o Make a promise to solve a problem. o Share new information. o Tug at their heartstrings. o Use sex appeal Once you have their attention, show them something that interests them. Carry them deeper into your message. Next, create desire. The heart has to say, I want it. Then, give them a few facts to help them justify the purchase. The head has to say, I get it. Remember, people buy with emotion and justify with logic later. Lastly, TELL THE VIEWER WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO! If you don t, you ve just wasted your time and money. Invite them to do business with you. You don t go to a party without an invitation, do you? Customers won t come to your business it you don t invite them. It s surprising how many new TV advertisers make this mistake. 13

14 Chapter 6 Mistake #6 Improper TV Production Planning Pre-planning your TV commercial production saves you time and money. I d like you to re-read that sentence several times. This cannot be overstated. The more you pre-plan, the better the chance you have to complete your commercial in the time and budget you have allocated. When I said earlier that you will handle all aspects of your television advertising campaign, I didn t mean that you will be behind the camera or moving lights around a set. Rather, you will be the general contractor, so to speak. You will hire experts to do what they do best. Your roll is to guide them and properly pre-plan the production to avoid common mistakes. How can you properly plan your television production? If the television station is producing your ad, meet with the director to go over your script. Let him know: o Who your target customers are. o The goal of your television advertising campaign. o The time frame regarding when you want to have the commercial in the can. o Any talent you want in your ad. I advise using friends, neighbors, relatives and most importantly target customers. o If you are going to be the on-camera spokesperson for your business. 14

15 o Different locations you would like to use to tape elements of the ad. o Dates and times for potential field shoots. o Dates and times for potential edit sessions. o Style of fonts for words on screen. o Bring a copy of your logo to the meeting. You will want your director to scout your location(s) for the shoot. He will bring a lighting person with him to pre-plan the types and number of lights to bring as well as any gels and other equipment. If you are the spokesperson and have lines on camera, make sure you practice in front of a video camera at home about a week before the shoot. Tape yourself, then rewind and view it. How did you look? Were you relaxed, believable and friendly? Did you smile? Did you sound natural? How about your supporting shots or B-Roll, as we call them? You must plan for these, too. Let s say you own a furniture store. You ll want your commercial to include close ups of some of the sectional sofas and mattresses that you are going to be featuring as sale items in your commercial. It isn t enough to say, Okay, time to take close up shots of the furniture. The lighting has to be just right. The background that the furniture is displayed in front of must be suitable. Some of the furniture may have to be positioned on blocks and tilted a bit to show it off at its best angle. You do not want to discover all of this after the fact! 15

16 This is not something you will be able to fix during the editing process. Only during shooting can you arrange the elements portrayed in your advertisement to their best advantage. Have you thought about where you are going to shoot your commercial? Location can make or break the ad. Indoors or outdoors? If indoors, you may need to think about lighting. If outdoors, you must take the weather into consideration and plan for alternate shoot dates. The location should definitely blend in with the product you are selling. You would not shoot a commercial that is advertising furniture with the local zoo as your background! On the other hand, if your business is a children s clothing store, the zoo might work very well for a location shoot. You may have to ask for permission to film in your chosen location. If you do not ask far enough in advance, your request may be denied. Scheduling will save you both money and time during video production. Scheduling also ensures that your cast and crew will be there on time and ready to work. A contingency plan should be worked into the schedule in case of illness. Be sure to pre-plan all shots you will need with a Shot Sheet. This is a form that itemizes all of the shots you intent to shoot including on camera talent shots, exterior of business shots, background shots for use in the edit session and B-Roll shots. Using this form ensures you have all of your shots before the crew packs up and leaves your location! 16

17 After you ve completed your field shoot and have all of your shots, you need to edit them according to your script in post production. Post production includes: Editing the video you taped for the commercial Editing the sound and voiceovers you recorded for the commercial Editing the music, if any, for the commercial Adding scene transitions to the commercial Transferring your commercial to a format acceptable to your TV station. Transferring your commercial to a DVD for you to show your employees. 17

18 Chapter 7 Mistake #7 Advertising on Cable TV First Here s where cable TV sales reps go postal. I do not recommend that small businesses use cable TV advertising with their first attempt at television advertising. Why? I ve been in this business for over 30 years, I speak from experience. I find that running an ad campaign on local network affiliated broadcast stations (like ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX) is more effective than cable ads for the same money spent. I can t tell you how many times I ve heard business owners who are not my clients-- say, I ve tried television and it didn t work. On further questioning, it turns out they ran their ads on cable. Believe me, if the reverse were true, I would be encouraging ALL my clients to use cable TV first, and then broadcast television. Besides, when you purchase ads on a broadcast station, your ads automatically run on your local cable TV system! How, you ask? We ll it s a Federal law. The Federal Communications Commission or FCC mandates that all cable systems in the U.S. carry the signal of the local broadcast stations in their markets. What that means to you is your ads on the broadcast station are carried much further than the over the air signal can reach via the cable system ALONG WITH ALL OF YOUR TV ADS! NOTE: I DO recommend buying cable ads with a portion of your budget only after you have achieved significant success on broadcast TV. Here s a tip on buying cable TV; choose ONE or TWO networks that you know hits your target customer and be a factor on them! 18

19 Chapter 8 Mistake #8 Paying Too Much! The major reason to use television advertising is to take your business to the next level of revenue. But, you don t want to pay more than you need to in order to begin your television advertising campaign. Educate yourself on how to handle all aspects of television advertising yourself. Doing this ensures, you won t ever pay too much. You must have this knowledge before you even think about dealing with the TV station sales reps. If you don t, you ll be paying 20 to 30% or more than you need to in both airtime and television production. Tips on how to get more bang for your buck when buying TV airtime: Do not purchase special packages offered by the sales department. They may appear to be a good deal but more times than not they ask for a large commitment and favor the station, not the advertiser. Do not purchase airtime in highly rated programs such as the late news or primetime. These time periods are very inefficient. Rather, you can buy smaller segments of those viewers in other more efficient areas such as the Morning News during the week or Evening News on Saturday and Sunday. Buy stand by schedules. Some stations will offer them, some will not. This works well with high profile programming such as sporting events or specials. 19

20 Buy ads to run in the first week of the month. You can negotiate a lower rate. Stations have more available inventory due to national advertisers typically not running during this time. Buy ROS (Run Of Schedule) ads. Run Of Schedule ads run in broad time periods. Negotiate the time period you want. The strategy here is that you will fall in high rated shows at a rate much lower than what it would cost to buy that show on its own. The odds are in your favor. EX: Monday through Friday 5am to 12 Midnight, Monday through Friday 5pm to 10:30pm, Saturday through Sunday 6am to 6:30pm etc Tips on how to get more bang for the buck on TV commercial production services: As I stated before; pre-planning your commercial production saves you time AND money. Pre-plan your shots, talents, oncamera lines, background C.G. shots, transitions, music, special graphics and voice over well in advance of your field shoot date and edit session. Save money on voice over talent by using local radio station personalities. Be sure they have access to their stations audio equipment and studios, or have their own studio. They will be more than happy to cut you a deal on their services. Don t want to limit yourself to voice talents in your city? How about being able to access thousands of professional voice over talents from all over the country all at your finger tips. If so, you need to check out one of the most incredible websites on the planet for voice over talent: 20

21 Conclusion Avoid these 8 mistakes and watch your sales explode! You can handle your television advertising campaign yourself! When you do, you ll Get More Customers, Make More Money! I wish you much success, Brian Baumann Brian Baumann is founder and president of Baumann Broadcast Marketing LLC., the nation s leading source of How-To information for small business television advertisers. With over 30 years of television advertising experience, Brian has helped thousands of retailers, professionals and entrepreneurs realize their dreams. Brian is creator of the groundbreaking self-study course: The Do-It-Yourself Television Advertising System for Small Business Owners. For more details visit For a limited time, Brian is offering Bonuses worth thousands of dollars with purchase of the course! 21