Direct Response

Unless you have the deep pockets of Richard Branson, you probably can’t afford to be spending a fortune on building your “brand” for the sake of having one.

The reality is, you can’t afford to throw money away on just getting your name and logo out there. But that’s what a lot of small business owners do when they dip their toes in the waters of television advertising. ‘Brand’ Advertising is a waste of money.

You should only engage in ‘Direct Response’ Marketing. As the name suggests, that means Marketing that produces a RESPONSE that you can MEASURE.

So every marketing campaign you put out there must give people a reason to respond. You must be offering one specific thing, something they want or need, something that’s going to interest them enough to haul themselves out of a chair and respond to you.

Indulging in so-called ‘institutional / brand marketing’ where you essentially say “This is us, here’s what we do, give us a call if we do anything that interests you” is a great way to empty the contents of your wallet into the wallets of the ad agency and production company with no appreciable return for you.

Whatever you do, don’t try to copy the big brands. Their TV advertising is paid for out of a virtually bottomless budget and the idea is to have the “awareness” of the “brand” percolate through the public’s consciousness.

And there is some point in doing this for big brands (although, it’s also true big brands from Fedex to Vodafone also use some direct response marketing pieces, which shows someone, somewhere in those organisations, and others, are starting to understand the need to make every pound in your marketing budget carry its own weight).

But for everyone else?

Forget it. Your brand is going to come as a result of all the other excellent things you do – by giving superb service, delivering fabulous products and giving your customers and clients a truly astonishing experience. That grows your reputation, and your brand is really nothing more than a symbol that represents your reputation. Plus you’ll get brand recognition as an inevitable by product of your direct response marketing.

And you can’t just build a reputation out of thin air – you’ve got to have some substance behind it.

So treat your TV ad just like any other ad – in other words, make sure it is, first and foremost, a direct response ad. This means it has to follow the general AIDA formula – Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

The fact you’re presenting this as spoken word standing in front of a camera rather than with written copy is irrelevant.

Similarly, if your budget will stretch to it, consider doing one of the late-night “infomercial” style ads. These can run up to 30 minutes or more and generally involve customer testimonials, product demonstrations and frequent calls to action.