With exciting opportunities opening up at a dizzying pace, television advertising remains one of the most powerful medium through which to engage and influence audiences. Television advertising aims at converting viewers into paying customers. It’s not just about big business with big budgets, even smaller, growing businesses can get in on the action. With the right approach, TV advertising can be a realistic option and shouldn’t cost the earth.
Here are some points that need to keep in mind when TV advertising for small businesses. These will help in streamlining the process and staying on budget.
1. Identify your goals: Before calling TV stations and production studios, sit down and map out your goals. If you’re launching a business, plan an advertising campaign around announcing your services and raising brand awareness.
2. Target the right audience: You should refine your messaging, determine your target audience for the specific campaign and develop a client avatar to help envision who will see the ad and what will appeal to those viewers.
3. It’s not as expensive as you might think: With the rapid development in quality of handheld devices and the improvements in editing software, the costs of shooting and developing a television ad have fallen remarkably quickly.
4. You can buy in small chunks: With the proliferation of channels, there are plenty of opportunities to buy small numbers of ad slots very cheaply.
Television advertising does not have to be out of reach for small businesses. While the thought of it may conjure up images of sets, studios, actors and actresses, craft services, lighting, sound, and expensive equipment, the truth is that it can be both affordable & effective.
Combine Audio & Video Seamlessly:
Effective TV commercials merge video & audio into a powerful tool by selling your product or service through both sight and sound. Turn down the volume on any good commercial, and you should be able to identify the product and its benefits just from the video. Combination of senses unavailable in most other forms of advertising allows advertisers to reach even those viewers who might not be giving their full attention to commercials. And if the sound or visual is effective enough, it might intrigue the viewer to watch & listen more closely. Most people who have taken writing courses in school or who have written professionally have heard “show, don’t tell” as feedback. This applies to TV commercials, as well. Effective ads do more than tell viewers that a product or service is effective; they show others gaining satisfaction from what is being sold.
Don’t neglect the audio:
Viewers should hear customers ordering specific items and raving about how good they look and taste. Again, listening to diners enjoying themselves is more important than listening to people explain why they like a restaurant. Be sure to include a call to action in your advertisement.
Production on a Budget:
Most small businesses will be advertising to a local audience & one of the most effective ways to do that is through local cable television operators that can sell packages which will place advertisements on a variety of popular cable channels. It’s also possible to go through local advertising firms that will work with local broadcast channels and cable providers. Either way, businesses can shoot their own footage inexpensively and provide that to the advertising outlet. Businesses simply need to know what video and audio formats will be acceptable, and the more they do on their own, the less they need to spend on outside production professionals. Some businesses may shoot some of their own videos & come up with the concepts, relying on production professionals to handle the editing and the completion of the ad. Others, if they have the skill, may shoot and edit their own commercial in its entirety. When it’s done, it’s important that business owners retain ownership of their commercials so they also can run them online through sites like YouTube.
Why Mplan Media?
We help your brand transform its vision & achieve its objectives using television advertising campaigns. We provide all-inclusive TV advertising plans, everything you need: media planning, creative consulting, advertising, airtime & analysis. Extensive data analysis using BARC data, also ensure the creative and media arms work together to achieve the best possible & sustainable routes to market your brand.
