Five Reasons Why Direct Response TV Is, and Will Always Be, The Most Dominant Direct Response Medium - Irv Brechner

Yes liking tweeting Googling and stumbling get all the press these days Yet Direct Response TV DRTV keeps on growing and growing and remains the 1 medium for many direct response marketers While not appropriate for every product or service DRTV has emerged as the workhorse powering exponential growth and building brands in the processDRTV BackgroundYou may have images of Ginsu knives pocket fishermen and kitchen gadgets stuck in your mind as representative of DRTV That was the case decades ago Today DRTV is mainstream used by such major brands and category leaders as Western Union Rowenta TiVo Humana Goldline ICON Fitness and Orkin to name a few and spending was up to 45 billion in 2010 dmnewscom Despite the economy the stalwarts of direct response continue to buy media with no end in sight simply because it works Here are 5 reasons why DRTV is so powerful and why you owe it to yourself to investigate it1 Storytelling and DemonstrationBy definition no medium has the ability to tell a story and demonstrate a product like TV The combination of rich video especially on HD TV39s along with audio and music enables advertisers to convey emotion and excitement whether it be 1 or 2minute shortforms or halfhour infomercials The ability to load up the shortforms with quick demonstrations product benefits and testimonials is a proven formula that works across numerous product and service categories2 Motivating Consumers to RespondCrafting a compelling calltoaction CTA is an art that has been perfected by practitioners in our industry When consumers hear quotbut wait there39s morequot they know an irresistible deal is about to follow In the same way that fastfood companies quotupsizequot DRTV marketers often offer a second product for free amp8211 all consumers pay is separate shipping and processing Consumers presented with quotI gotta have itquot CTAs are one of the cornerstones of DRTV success3 TrackabilityDRTV media placements are now relatively easy to track We39ve identified three major ways in which consumers respond to TV ads and have developed technology and processes to combine results into one meaningful number one that is used to determine the profitability of each media placement By being able to combine phone orders via unique 800 web orders via iFactzenabled URLs and quotDRTV driven searchquot orders that come through search engines today39s DRTV advertiser has a true snapshot of the performance of TV media and can make intelligent decisions about where to buy more or less airtime4 ROI FocusUnlike other media where determining actual ROI is impossible or at best murky DRTV offers advertisers precise ways of measuring sales revenues and profits In this day and age of focus on the bottom line the DRTV industry is wellpositioned because it39s entire basis for being is ROI5 Media ValueThe primary reason why the numbers work and make positive ROI possible is that DRTV time is purchased at 50 to 70 off rate card with a couple of requirements none of which are onerous Purchasing DRTV media is a winwin for advertisers and the networks Networks always have unsold air time which they sell into our industry Advertisers that could never make fullprice TV time work have a viable optionBut Wait There39s MoreWe have a saying around here at Acquirgy and it39s quotDRTV lifts all boatsquot By that we mean that whenever DRTV campaigns run other offline and online tactics benefit Search impressions clicks and sales rise often in parallel with the amount of TV dollars spent quotAs Seen On TVquot banners tie into campaigns And YouTube and other videosharing sites extend the life of infomercials But that39s not allQuite possibly the greatest benefit of DRTV is how it impacts retail Typically for every one product sold directtoconsumer expect to see 5 to 10 sales take place at retail For those marketers that have a national retail or dealer footprint DRTV becomes even more powerful One of the things we pride ourselves on is our DRTV Lab a process that evaluates products and services to determine how viable they are We remove all the emotion associated with a new product or service and focus on the competition margin value to consumers size of market and dozens of other factors What emerges is either a quotthumbs downquot or a blueprint detailing what it will take to achieve successConclusionAs I said at the outset DRTV is not for every product or service But if you suspect that this medium might work for what you have it39s worth learning about the industry our Customer Acquisition IntelCenter is loaded with papers briefs cases and proven tactics all free and without registrationGrab a PDF of this article at httpA74acquirgynetIrv Brechner has written over 100 published direct marketing articles and 13 books on a variety of topics He39s been a pioneer in online customer acquisition since 1996 and offline for his 35year career He has developed Acquirgycom39s quotCustomer Acquisition Intel Centerquot acquirgycomintel he evangelizes bestofbreed tactics to help companies acquire customers in the digital age He can be reached at irvacquirgycom Read all Irv39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Customer Acquisition IntelCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Five Reasons Why Direct Response TV Is, and Will Always Be, The Most Dominant Direct Response Medium - Irv Brechner

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