Television Advertising

by Barbara A. Alba, President

WellStar Marketing, Inc.

It’s the beginning of a new year….time to assess the successes and disappointments of the previous year and make plans for the coming 12 months. Company owners need to ask themselves, “What can I do to be more successful this year?” Defining business success is an individual thing, but for many firms and establishments, it means enhancing profit through an increase in new customers.

That is where marketing enters the picture. It’s very important creating a marketing plan and looking at it as a continuous, long-term process. The basics of marketing include developing a consistent image and enlisting your staff as a living, breathing extension of that image (i.e., one of your best forms of “advertising”). For some businesses, customer referral programs and other simple techniques can be used to create a loyal and ever-expanding customer base. These straightforward techniques are sufficient to support many promotional goals. But for other businesses, more aggressive marketing is needed to satisfy their definition of success.

The Continuum of Media

Today, many small business owners starting out in the marketing arena may look first at print advertising in either newspapers or magazines. Others may consider direct mail campaigns or take on the challenge of internet marketing. But some ambitious businesses will look further up the media food chain, namely, at television advertising.

While not for everyone, television advertising is a highly effective and surprisingly affordable means of advertising. Skeptical?

Consider these facts:

Television reaches 98% of the population; the average adult spends an average of 272 minutes watching TV every day (more than all other media outlets combined)
In independent studies ranking the attributes of various media, television rates the highest in the categories of most authoritative (49%), most exciting (80%), most influential (82%) and most persuasive (67%).
On the basis of Cost per Thousand (CPM) of individuals reached by a medium, the average cable television campaign is half of the cost of newspaper advertising.

The cost issue, of course, is the stumbling block for most businesses who might otherwise consider TV advertising. Even though the CPM figures are impressive, the amount of money it takes to launch a TV advertising campaign is often prohibitive for a smaller venture. Medium to larger-sized businesses are in a position to consider television advertising as part of their marketing mix and take advantage of the many opportunities it can offer.

The Beauty (and Affordability) of Cable

The tremendous expansion of cable television in the past ten years has translated into a fantastic opportunity for local advertisers. Cable offers the ability to target narrow segments of the population because of each network’s special programming emphasis. For example, businesses looking to reach women ages 35 to 60 with household incomes of $75,000 + can consider advertising on the Home and Garden Network (HGTV), the Food Network, FX, Bravo and E! Entertainment, all highly ranked among this demographic group.

In addition, thanks to the geographic zoning that Comcast Cable has put together, a business would be able to reach that same demographic group but only in a specific area, i.e., Southeast Montgomery County. Comcast currently offers 28 geographic zones in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware. Some are larger than others. For example, Philadelphia County represents 293,500 households, while the Southeast Montgomery County zone (encompassing Jenkintown, Huntingdon Valley and Willow Grove) has just over 40,000. That’s great news for businesses who serve that area; rates are highly dependent on the size of the zone you are purchasing as well as the number and type of networks you choose. A 30-second spot on even a popular channel like TNT can run as low as $14.00 in these smaller zones.

However, like other forms of advertising, frequency is the key to a successful cable campaign. A typical campaign is spread over several networks that reach the same demographic target and includes a minimum of 50 to 100 spots per week to achieve the optimal level of reach and frequency. So it’s easy to see how even at $14.00 a spot, the costs can add up.

Budgeting for Cable Television

An experienced media planner/buyer can work with you to select and prioritize the networks that would best suit your target audience and budget. While opinions will vary on this point, a minimum monthly budget for a cable advertising campaign is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,500 to $5,000, depending on the size of the zone you are targeting. Again, that figure will cause rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath in smaller businesses, while larger ventures can more easily justify this cost.

Campaigns should be planned for a minimum six-month run before results can be truly evaluated. So that means an investment of $18,000 to $30,000, plus the cost of producing the television spot itself. This is not an area where the do-it-yourselfer should try to save money. A poorly produced, amateur-looking cable spot can do much more harm than good. Luckily, there are many competent production companies who can develop quality spots for as little as $1,500.

Television advertising may not be for everyone, but for those who have the budget and the “chops,” it is an exciting and cost-effective way to reach out to a highly targeted circle of potential customers, just waiting to find out about YOUR business.