How To Market Your Product On TV
Despite the ever growing retail powerhouse of eCommerce, TV marketing and sales still command and audience of millions of viewers. QVC and channels like it continue to thrive selling thousands of products, services and items daily on a near 24 hour viewing cycle. Even in the internet age, TV is still a prime contender for the population’s disposable income.
If there is a market for what you’re selling, QVC and other shopping channels can reach that market and sell your products. The challenge of marketing a product on TV lies in getting your product on the air in the right time slot and seen by the right people. Here’s a guide to how you tailor your product marketing for TV customers and get your product sales off the ground.
Fundamentals of TV Marketing: Need, Information, Buying Decision.
Potential customers don’t buy products they know nothing about. The foundation of marketing on TV is providing information about the product to elicit a buying decision. Per a recent study by the Television Bureau of Advertising, 90 percent of all adults in the US see some form of product marketing on TV daily. Additionally, TV commercials still have the most influence on buying decisions versus any other advertising media. All you need to do is create a need for your product with your target market, provide more information and try to motivate a buying decision.
Statistically speaking, if you make it and put it on TV, your target market will find you. When you market on TV, you have hundreds of channels to choose from, and each has their own unique viewer base. Configuring your marketing to reach the most customers in your target market is a multi-step process, and there will be challenges at each stage to overcome. If you stick to the objective of providing information in a way that makes your product attractive to your target market, you will find that your product starts selling well. Here’s a step-by-step overview of how to market for TV.
Step 1: Who Is Your Ideal Customer?
When you developed your product or service, you planned it out and built it with a specific need or set of needs in mind. Whatever you have to offer, it is going to solve problems for people and improve their lives. This is the starting point for finding and developing the ideal customer profile.
An ideal customer profile is a mock-up of the type of person who needs what you have to sell. Here are some questions to ask when building your ideal customer profile:
-What is the age range for your ideal customer?
-What income bracket is likely to need your product or service?
-What price points will be most affordable for your ideal customer’s income bracket?
-What pain points/problems are you seeking to eliminate for your ideal customer?
-What problem/problems does your target market have that can be solved by your product or service?
-Will customers typically make a one-time purchase or are they likely to be repeat customers? (product dependent)
-What is the size of your ideal customer population? (you’ll need to do some market research to answer this one)
Once you have your ideal customer profile, you’re ready to make a coherent and effective marketing plan. To do that, you need to determine the scale of your advertising campaign.
Step 2: What Advertising Scale Are You Aspiring To?
This is a fairly brief step in your plan, but it is still an important consideration: are you planning in a local, regional or national advertising campaign via television? Not only does this narrow the field for your product advertising and marketing, but it also helps you choose the best channels for promoting your product.
Step 3: What Channels Best Serve Your Ideal Customer?
After you come to a decision about the scale of your advertising, you are ready to select a TV channel from your scale and ideal customer profile. An easy way to do this on your own is to watch various shopping and entertainment channels (local, regional or national as appropriate) and see what products and services like yours are being offered. You can also do some internet research via different websites that track advertising analytics for TV network viewers. TV networks themselves also share this information as a means of attracting advertisers, so you may find checking their site directly is also an excellent resource.
Step 4: Contact An Advertising Representative
By this time, you have done your homework by developing an ideal customer profile, deciding on an advertising scale, researching what network reaches the largest population in your target market, selecting a TV network or channel best suits your product. Good job!
Now it’s time to contact an advertising representative to see about promoting your product. An ad sales rep could be at your TV channel or station of choice, a local/regional TV network reps, paid-TV service reps (cable/satellite), or a third party agency/firm. Whoever you talk to, you need to ensure that they have the clout and the ability to get your marketing material on the air and in front of your target market. If you aren’t sure who to contact or where to get started, check out the Television Bureau of Advertising. This non-profit association represents various agencies and firms in the television industry, and they are an excellent resource for any business looking to advertise or market on television. Google also offers television ad services via their AdWords service if you are looking for a minimal-cost option for your advertising.
Step 5: Create Your Product Ad
It’s showtime! Now that you have your marketing plan in place and you’ve contact an agency or firm to run your ad, it is time to make that commercial, infomercial or video ad. If you have any video production experience and the right equipment, you can create or record the ad spot yourself.
If not, there are hundreds of local and regional agencies and firms that can help you produce the commercial for distribution. There are pros and cons to hiring someone else to help you make the commercial, but if your goal is quality over quantity a third party is going to be your best option.
Media production companies have the latest video production equipment and recording gear, and they have more experience editing and producing video content. When you want to maximize the impact of your advertising dollars, hiring professional help can go a long way to maximizing your ROI. The cost varies by what type of commercial or advertisement you are looking to make, and rates vary by agency.
Bottom line, the longer and more complex you want your ad to be, the more it will cost. That’s the primary determining factor in calculating your ROI, and you need to make sure you allocate sufficient funds in your budget to cover those costs.
Step 6: Track Your Results
Your marketing plan is now running, your ad is on TV, and you are hopefully moving product thanks to your television advertising efforts. Now you’re ready to start determining how effective your advertising is. There should be a direct relationship between advertising and sales. If you are advertising and not seeing a sales increase, you may need to adapt your marketing plan a bit.
Maybe the target demographic isn’t being reached effectively on the channel or network you chose. Maybe your ad doesn’t create the sense of urgency and need for your product. Whatever the reason, if your ad isn’t performing you may need to tweak things a bit to get the desired result. You won’t know what needs fixing unless you are monitoring that ad’s performance, so it’s important to keep a close eye on results to maximize your ROI for marketing dollars spent.
Final Thoughts
Marketing a product for television is getting the right information about the right product in front of the right potential customers. The marketing model you choose to determine who those target potential customers are is going to create the most significant impact on how effective your marketing is and how much of a sales return each ad creates. It’s also important to choose an advertising sales representative that is the best fit for your product and who can help you find the best channel or network to promote your product. Last but not least, it’s critical to hire the right creative team to make the ad and to monitor its results closely.
Advertising on television offers many advantages over other marketing channels, but it does require just the right combination of factors to be successful. Not all those factors are within your control, but working with the right people makes a significant difference.
At PTPA Media, we have a team of experts who excel at developing marketing content for television, internet and influencer channels. If you have a product you’d like to promote on television, reach out and contact us via our website. We’d love to meet or speak with you regarding your television marketing needs. Call or visit our site today, and before you know it you’ll be driving those sales numbers higher than you ever thought possible.