The short answer is yes, but lets take a deeper dive.
Running Broadcast local tv commercials have a few purposes:
- Create action such as visiting your physical location or calling you
- Develop the presence of your brand
And that’s it!
Now how we get there and the actions taken to reach that can be more complicated but particularly for local advertisements the most successful uses have been keeping it simple.
Our advice for 90% of local TV advertising is to keep it simple!
- Remember you fighting everything else going on for their attention.
- This means you can’t waste that effort and need to have a compelling message once you have grabbed their attention.
- The message itself should be as short as possible, and yet compelling. Most people have a short attention span and particularly for the “message” part of the commercial you can’t waste time. Be direct!
For example in the case of a automotive dealership the offer could be something as simple “New Car X available for only $___” Or “Save ___ on a new CarX”. Focus on at most two and very very rarely three offers within the commercial. We’ve seen SOOOO many commercials that try to fit in as many words and offers as they possibly can and This is a mistake. Doing this just makes it nearly impossible to hear the actual “message” as it becomes noise and annoying.
When you are thinking of what offer to run, make sure it is an offer people should actually care about. We’ve seen plenty of ads that look great, but have a less than compelling offer that doesn’t motivate action. Again the point is to CREATE ACTION.
When planning local broadcast spots, we typically do a lot of searching to see what ads are currently running that might be competing with the ad we are creating. Many times reaching out to the media platform you are going to run the ad on can be a great way to see what others are running.
Ad placement is key. Some local brands will try to buy the cheapest ad space available and get the most volume out of a dollar, meaning spending the least amount of money to run the ad the most number of times. This is incorrect. You need to really think about what shows and times your audience might be watching. Take a look at your current list of clients or sales demographic reports and make some guesses. This can be refined over time, but generally if you realize a good chunk of your target audience is watching the local 5 o’clock news, then you are better to buy 2 ad runs within this time than buy 20 at 1130pm. Again if your target audience isn’t seeing the spot, it won’t produce action. Keep in mind the costs associated with buying tv media can vary drastically, so it is hard to put specific numbers on it, however generally the lower end of the media spend budget is 2-5 Thousand across several networks per month. Again, you don’t just want to buy the cheapest media spots available, but at the same time, paying a premium for special events or primetime is not always required to have an effective tv campaign.
Another note on ad targeting is that you REALLY should have even a basic CRM to track your customer list, leads, demographics and ultimately put some numbers to your sales. Using data to make decisions is key to effectively generating an ROI on your ad spend.
Keep in mind that even small businesses can advertise on cable services such as Comcast. Generally our clients’ traffic is split between broadcast and cable, but cable provides more placement options and can reach different audiences than broadcast.
Many times when planning a broadcast campaign we spend as much time planning when and where to run the commercial as we do planning what the commercial will be and creating it.
Creative is to grab the viewers’ attention
- Most local commercials are created with a limited budget which means we aren’t going to have 5 cameras, 4 locations and 15 actors for one commercial.
- BUT this doesn’t mean your commercial needs to look like every other local commercial on TV and it shouldn’t if you want it to be effective.
- Most commercials are 30 seconds. You are better to run a 30 second ad multiple times than have a 60 second commercial as retention will fall. 15 second spots can be effective as well.
What’s the point in spending thousands of dollars on media buying if you creative is so weak it doesn’t grab the viewers’ attention? Even with a limited budget, you can work with an agency or production company to create a spot that is professional looking and effectively grabs the attention of the viewers.
One of the most important aspects to planning creative is to do a lot of research and get a feel for what others are running then make sure your commercial stands out from the pack.
Ultimately regardless of if you use animation, actors, customers, your employees or the business manager or owner is in it, make sure that it stands out!
Results
Local TV advertising does work in 2020 and will drive results and a great ROI if you follow the guidelines above and monitor your campaign and adjust accordingly.
That being said, it rarely works overnight and can take a several months to start showing results. Particularly if your campaign has a less tangible offer and more relies on branding, you will need to be patient for results to be obvious. Many times this a case of potential customers seeing your commercial but simply not needing your service at that time, but when they do in a few months they will come calling.
If you have any questions about planning an effective broadcast tv campaign or questions in general about planning your marketing strategy, let us know! We’ve produced literally hundreds of regional television ads with over a dozen brands from Knoxville, Tennessee to Munich, Germany, so we’re happy to help with your Knoxville video production marketing or startup marketing needs in any way that we can!
