E-Mail Makes TV Ads Better
How to enhance TV advertising with an e-mail campaign (and a little search advice, to boot).
How to enhance TV advertising with an e-mail campaign (and a little search advice, to boot).
For most of my career, and to this day, I’ve been heavily involved in creating direct response TV ads, both short-form spots and long-form half-hour infomercials. In the last eight years, I’ve also create email campaigns. I’ve observed when email campaigns are delivered while TV commercials are running at heavy frequency levels, response rates are much higher, sometimes by a factor of 30 percent or greater.
That’s why recent cross-media research from Dynamic Logic didn’t surprise me. The company found TV combined with online promotions aided five different metrics agencies and advertisers use to measure TV commercials’ branding value:
Although none of these metrics measure actual purchases (I haven’t been able to find any research that does), I can tell you from our results if you’re a TV advertiser, a multifaceted online component is a campaign necessity. There are several reasons for this coordinated approach:
I wish everyone who wants to respond to a direct-response TV commercial would do so the same way, by calling the toll-free number or going to the proper URL. In reality, it doesn’t work this way. That’s why you need to cover all your bases. Some tips:
Because so many consumers have their primary Internet computer and TV in the same room, and in many cases consume both media simultaneously, you might consider timing email drops with commercial airings. Say you have a national infomercial running between 10:00 and 10:30 a.m. If you’re planning an email push, schedule it to arrive at 10:30 a.m. This will combine with TV for a one-two punch that increases response.
A note of caution concerning paid search: If you do paid search and run TV simultaneously, TV may increase your paid search expenses. If your bids are low, this won’t have a material effect. But if you’re bidding $0.50 or more per click, you need some additional analysis.
Using the same example of an infomercial running between 10:00 and 10:30 a.m., check to see if your paid click activity spikes during that time and immediately after. This will likely be a result of the TV commercial. If you incur an extra $100 in click charges, add that to the cost of the commercial and see if your cost per order or cost per lead is acceptable. It’s a hidden cost very few direct marketers are aware of.
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