There is no doubt that if you choose to advertise on television you can reach millions of viewers. There are a few options you’ll need to consider before delving in.
- Local vs National television advertising
- Making the TV commercial
- Buying media
Local TV Advertising vs National TV Advertising
You probably have an inkling as to where you want to advertise your tv commercial but to help you choose we’ll go over some deciding factors. Obviously, if your business is a brick and mortar operation that has most of its customers within a 10-15 mile radius, local tv advertising is for you. Now there are some exceptions such as car dealerships and injury attorneys where their reach can be much larger to include an entire county. We’ll go over costs and whether you should do cable or broadcast networks in the media buying section below.
National TV advertising is typically designated for products or services that can be scaled throughout the United States. If you have a product, can it be used by a broad audience? Can you ship quickly and affordably nationally? Can you sell it for under $50 including shipping? Or if you have a service such as wealth management, can it be scaled nationally where you can provide advisers in every state? These are just a few things to consider if you decide to advertise on national tv. Once again, there is the national cable vs broadcast networks question which we’ll cover below in the Buying Media section.
Producing a TV Commercial
Producing a tv commercial is one of the best parts of your campaign, other than the sales going through the roof when you start advertising. This is where the story of your company takes center stage in a creative way in order to garner a ton of attention. Typically, local tv commercials are 30 seconds long and you get the most bang for your buck this way.
Nationally, if this is your first time airing and ad, a 60 second spot is recommended. Unless you have experience in all aspects of producing, writing, casting and editing a video, I highly recommend hiring a video production company to create a tv commercial for you.
The type of tv commercial that you should run out the gate is a hybrid type of commercial where you have an emotional appeal in the first 10-15 seconds and then jump into the informative aspect of the spot. The tv ad depends heavily on the demographic you want to target as well so please keep that in mind in the development of the script. Truly get into the pain point of your audience as to why they need to your product or service and think of an out of the box idea that presents that problem and then the solution to that problem.
Here is an example:
Media Buying
Now we get down to the science. At the core of media buying is the data and analysis before and during the campaign. If you are advertising locally, you have two options. You can either purchase the airtime directly with the local broadcast stations & cable provider or you can go through a media buying agency.
Local TV Advertising
- Broadcast Advertising: Typically for building brand. Larger audience. Costs more than cable. You can air a 30 second ad for as slow as $250 per airing in Los Angeles for example and reach millions of viewers. Total monthly budget needs to be $15K-$20K to test.
- Local Cable: Great for direct response. More targeted audience in specific zip codes. You can air a 30 second commercial for about $5-$15 per airing. Total monthly budget should be $3K-$5K to test.
For National media buying it is highly recommended that you go through a media buying agency. They have the data and analysis such as competitor info, demographic statistics and network recommendations. In this particular instance, we’ll only discuss national cable advertising since national broadcast costs are way too high for a typical business. If you are just starting out and you want to test your product on TV, national cable is the best bang for your buck.
National Cable Advertising
- Great for direct response advertising where ad measurement is essential. It allows for longer duration such as 60 seconds or even 2 min to get your message across. A typical test nationally on networks such as FOX, TBS, USA, FX, TNT, BET, COMEDY CENTRAL etc, with a frequency of about 100 airings, is about $25K for two weeks.
OTT Advertising
- Offers the status of tv advertising with the tracking of online advertising. Especially targeting. OTT advertising is generally delivered through the streaming services or VOD. A typical budget for OTT advertising is $15K-$25K for 6 weeks.
