Television advertising is a tool for businesses aiming to expand their reach. Despite the growth of digital platforms, TV’s audiovisual storytelling connects with a vast audience, offering a unique impact. For companies looking to build brand identity or drive sales, understanding television advertising is the first step. This medium provides a platform to showcase products and services to a captive audience.
Define Your Target Audience and Goals
The first step is to define the advertisement’s audience and its intended goals. This involves creating a detailed profile of the target customer, considering demographics like age, gender, income, and location, as well as psychographics such as interests and lifestyles. Understanding these characteristics helps in crafting a message that resonates and influences purchasing decisions.
With a clear audience in mind, the next step is setting specific, measurable goals for the campaign. These objectives could range from increasing brand awareness to boosting sales for a particular product, providing a benchmark for evaluating success.
Understand the Types of TV Advertising
Television advertising offers several avenues for businesses to reach audiences. Each type has a unique reach and delivery method, catering to different campaign goals and budgets. Understanding these options is part of building an effective media plan.
A. Broadcast TV
Broadcast television includes major national networks like NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX, which transmit signals over the airwaves. These networks reach a massive, general audience, making them suitable for brands with nationwide distribution. Advertising on broadcast TV is associated with high-impact events and prime-time programming that attract millions of viewers.
B. Cable TV
Cable television delivers content through cables to subscribers and includes specialized channels like ESPN or HGTV. This allows for more targeted advertising, as businesses can select channels that align with their target demographic’s interests. For example, a home improvement company could advertise on HGTV to reach homeowners.
C. Local vs. National Buys
Businesses can purchase ad time on a local or national level. A national buy places a commercial across a network’s entire footprint. In contrast, a local buy, or spot TV, targets a specific geographic area by purchasing time on local affiliate stations. This approach is ideal for businesses whose customer base is in a particular market.
D. Connected TV (CTV) / Over-the-Top (OTT)
Connected TV (CTV) is advertising on internet-connected televisions, such as a smart TV or via a streaming device. Over-the-Top (OTT) is a broader term for streaming content on any device, including laptops and smartphones. This advertising allows for highly specific targeting based on data like viewing habits and demographics, similar to digital advertising. It offers a way to reach cord-cutters and younger audiences who consume content on-demand.
Determine Your Budget and Potential Costs
The cost of television advertising varies significantly. Variables include the network, the time of day the ad airs, and the program’s popularity. Ads running during prime-time hours, when viewership is highest, command a premium compared to off-peak slots.
Ad length is another determinant, with standard options being 15, 30, or 60-second spots. The size and demographics of the geographic market also play a part, as advertising in a major metropolitan area is more expensive. Costs can range from a few hundred dollars for a local spot to millions for a national campaign during a major event.
Two common pricing models are Cost Per Mille (CPM) and Cost Per Point (CPP). CPM is the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of an ad and is useful for comparing the efficiency of different media. CPP is the cost of buying one rating point, which represents 1% of the target audience in a specific market. This model helps media planners allocate budgets and evaluate cost-effectiveness.
Execute the Ad Buy
With a strategy and budget, the next step is purchasing ad time. Businesses can either contact the television station’s sales department directly or hire a professional media buying agency.
A station’s account executive’s primary loyalty is to their employer, not your business. In contrast, an advertising agency works for you. These firms leverage industry relationships and buying power to negotiate favorable rates. An agency can manage the entire process, from planning to monitoring, which benefits businesses without in-house expertise.
The buying process begins with requesting a media kit, which details programming, viewership, and available ad slots. The next step is negotiation to secure the best rates for desired time slots. Once terms are agreed upon, the purchase details are formalized in an insertion order or contract outlining the schedule and costs.
Produce Your Commercial
With ad time secured, the focus shifts to creating the commercial. Production is a separate component of the campaign. Businesses can produce their commercial through a do-it-yourself approach, by hiring a freelance videographer, or by partnering with a full-service production company.
The creative should be built around a clear message that tells a story and connects with the target audience. A good script is the foundation and should grab the viewer’s attention quickly. It is also important to include a clear call to action (CTA) that tells the audience what to do next, such as visiting a website or store. Finally, the finished commercial must adhere to the broadcaster’s technical specifications to ensure it airs correctly.
Measure Your Campaign’s Success
Determining the effectiveness of a television ad campaign is the final step. Measuring the return on investment (ROI) helps justify the expenditure and informs future advertising decisions. While tracking TV ad performance is not as direct as with digital ads, several methods can gauge its impact.
Common tactics to measure performance include:
- Creating a unique landing page, phone number, or promotional code for the ad
- Monitoring for spikes in website traffic during and after the ad airs
- Tracking increases in online search queries for your brand
- Conducting pre- and post-campaign surveys to measure shifts in brand awareness
By analyzing these metrics, you can get a clearer picture of your campaign’s performance and make data-driven decisions to optimize future efforts.