Local Advertising has helped thousands of businesses of all types and sizes grow, and become more successful. A local TV campaign can be launched for less than most marketers often estimate, but once the exploration process begins, it’s important to know at a high level what the process of creating the campaign will entail, so that the marketer can have better communication with their Creative and Media Agencies, and in turn get better results from their TV Campaign. Below is a description of the steps required to undertake a local TV marketing initiative.
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1. Create a Media Plan that Reaches Qualified Buyers:
Once you have created a hypothesis about who your target market(s) are, and set basic revenue/profit goals, it’s time to find the shows, times of day and networks that best match your market, and thus bring the best result. Here are the key factors to consider:
- Demographic analysis: Cable network zones are organized in specific geographic clusters. What locations contain the highest concentration of your target market? How do they match up with cable zones, satellite network service areas, and broadcast ranges? What percentage of subscribers in that area fall into your market?
- Psychographic analysis: What stations and networks are preferred by your target market? What times of day do they watch TV? What kinds of programs do they watch? What special events, and holidays are important to them?
- Branding, Direct Response or Both: How many times does your customer need to see your commercial to act on your offer? Is your product complex or simple to understand? How can your prospective customer purchase your product or service? In a store, on the Internet, or by placing a telephone order?
2. Design Effective Creative for your Local Advertising Campaign:
Showing your target market a high quality, trustworthy and well designed commercial is essential to the success of each local television advertising campaign. Many sources will attempt to produce a commercial for $15,000 or even $10,000. These commercials, while reducing initial cost, introduce a substantial amount of risk to a campaign. If the commercial is of low quality, and the script does not present your offer in an appealing way, consumers will not view the product to have quality or value, and will often distrust low budget, poor quality commercial presentations. It is best to work with an agency that has a defined creative methodology, and a track record of success. This may add incremental cost to your campaign, but will reduce the risk of failure and substantially increase the chances of exponential upside to your results. For more about creative methodologies see our DRTV Production and Ad Grading Methodology.
3. Test Your Hypothesis:
Testing is an essential part of any new campaign. Once your creative is produced, and your media plan is matched to your target market, it is essential to do several trial runs to refine your target market hypothesis and your TV commercial. As a rule of thumb, two to three tests may be necessary to optimize your longer term advertising budget, and reduce waste over the long run. Media tests in each local market generally require budgets of $20,000 per month to get baseline data and make improvements. For better or worse, tests are the only way to get real-time information about how your product will be received by your market through local television advertisements. That said, many clients often get a sizable return, even from tests, and modifications are made to increase profitability, not just to mitigate losses.
4. Launch a Full Campaign:
Once tests have successfully been undertaken, its time to commit to a longer term advertising campaign that will meet your long term goals for growth. Patience and consistency is a key factor in achieving success. Consistent milestones, and monitoring of media and commercial creative are required to ensure continued performance in an ever changing marketplace, therefore this process as a whole is iterative, and must be undertaken at regular intervals. For more information on key advertising topics, including Direct Response and Infomercials see our Direct-Response Television and Local Advertising Resource Guide.