Direct Response (DRTV) with Brand Marketing

By Doug Engebrethson

Many companies, start ups, established DRTV outfits and others attempt to handle fulfillment of their products. We define fulfillment as shipping products, collecting payment and handling customer care. While this may seem like a good business decision, it is fraught with peril. The complexities of inventory management, payment processing, reporting and returns require expertise of staff and technology…most times entailing a significant investment. Investments in these technologies require substantial scale to justify the appropriate ROI. Often, but not always, this investment would be better directed to increasing customer acquisition and retention. Loyal customers who buy again because the quality, price and service were exceptional, is the best strategic course to pursue. Creating a good buying experience is akin to handling fulfillment and customer care in a professional manner. Far too often, the lifetime value of a customer is overlooked in building a brand.

Our top ten reason to consider outsourcing fulfillment follow and can be applied to most products and services. - READ THE ARTICLE: 10 Compelling Reasons for Outsourcing Fulfillment

By Marianna Morello

With more than 30 years of experience in the print media arena, I can confess that 2009 has been a bit of a shocking year, to say the least. Rates for print media have fallen to their lowest levels in 15 years. I am buying opportunistic remnant buys at costs-per-thousand (CPM) that range from $1.25 to $8.00 for publications that would have never offered this in the past.

What does all of this add up to? A buying opportunity for anyone smart enough to get into the print media world. A number of clients have been bitten by the print media bug. They are reaping incredible returns-on-investment, with some reaching media efficiency ratios (MER) of 5.5 and better.

As we are all aware, the stock market and banks are not the places to invest your money right now. If you believe in your product, create a print ad and test the waters. Now is the time to dive in and see your profits grow. Print can give you a better ROI when you consider all the alternatives.

The DRTV industry has always felt that print ads do not pay out. On the contrary, during the economic crisis, print media is the cheapest way to invest money into your product or service, with as little as $3,000-5,000 enough to test a newly developed print campaign.

Remember one thing: you can always use another revenue stream, and print is a stream that keeps on flowing. Even after your short-form campaign or infomercial is off the air, your print ad will keep on returning responses for weeks and months to come.

Need more reasons to try print media? Here are nine reasons (courtesy of Magazine Publishers Association studies from 2007 and 2008) to give it a shot.- READ THE ARTICLE: Why Print Media — and Why Now?

By Joey Hastie

There are a number of ways to obtain your ROI goals using the available DR outlets. The question you should consider is, "Am I effectively buying the opportunities that are available to me?" The market is an evolving place and currently a majority of the DR efforts are focused on Television. Of course, this makes perfect sense. This has been the formula that has created a multi billion dollar industry for years. But the digital world is progressive and these changes have sparked an assortment of new opportunities for marketers to take advantage of. Targeting specific demographics becomes more and more of a fragmented process because consumers are accessing media in non-traditional ways. Advertisers using the old model of "broad" casting are finding that obtaining their ROI goals are becoming increasingly challenging.

Why the struggle? What is the stigma behind steering away from the tried and true DR TV campaigns that we are so comfortable with? The obvious answer is fear of the unknown. What advertiser is going to risk failure on a platform they have no background on when the DR TV formula has proved itself time and time again? The reality of the situation is that consumers are rapidly gravitating towards new technologies. DVR's computers, portable music players, and advanced cell phones are now affordable and accessible to most demographic groups. If you were to survey your close friends and family, it is likely that you would find that a majority of them have an mp3 player, messaging cell phone, and minimum of one DVR.- READ THE ARTICLE: Marketing DR Across Platforms

By Chris Setser

ConnectFirst, a cutting-edge hosted technology company, offers a Cloud Routing Platform that is very useful for limiting abandoned calls, decreasing queue times and testing multiple contact centers from the same media campaigns.

ConnectFirst helps you manage your call traffic by allowing you to make use of multiple destinations distributing calls based upon your preferences. Allocation can be configured in many ways, so no call receives a busy signal or is placed in an infinite queue.- READ FULL DIRECT RESPONSE ARTICLE: ConnectFirst Cloud Routing

By Mauricio Duran

The myriad ways that businesses are leveraging SharePoint clearly demonstrate that in today’s Web 2.o world, the Web site is no longer simply online “brochure-ware.” Indeed, SharePoint-built corporate Web sites act as virtual stores, online communities and portal destinations where users visit, buy and interact. Using SharePoint, it’s easy to create wikis, blogs, and portals to enable groups to collaborate and personalize content based on the user’s profile and needs. In addition to sharing and managing content, SharePoint allows businesses to deploy search functionality as well as analyze important corporate data. It is a little known fact that SharePoint is also being used more and more to optimize search engine rankings. - READ FULL DIRECT RESPONSE ARTICLE: Leveraging SharePoint to Optimize Your Search Engine Rankings

A Sony Pictures Entertainment company, 2waytraffic knows television audiences and how to produce compelling content that puts viewers in active mode. Two years ago, 2waytraffic’s EVP of Business Development, James Joyce, created a unique platform that fuses participation TV in programming with telco-based DRTV offers. Viewers are invited by the host, judge or other talent from a popular national TV show to call a toll-free number and vote or give their opinion on show topics. After participating, callers are presented with several direct response offers, which are fulfilled by a live call center agent or transcription database capture.

2waytraffic has successfully integrated this experience into more than a dozen nationally syndicated and network programs, including Maury, Judge Joe Brown, The View, Inside Edition and The Biggest Loser, among many others, offering advertisers a unique opportunity to instantly convert these valuable audiences into customers in a completely measurable way. 2waytraffic inserts advertisers into these programs on a Cost Per Lead basis, making their platform completely unique in the marketplace. Now, advertisers can run per inquiry-based campaigns on nationally broadcast programs in some of the most sought after programs on television, where per inquiry media placements have never been available to them.
- Converting Viewers Into Customers: 2waytraffic gets TV viewers to call

“When a sixty second ad can convince a consumer to grab his credit card, pick up the phone and order a product instantly, that’s my definition of a success” says Collette Liantonio, president of Concepts TV Productions. Success in Direct Response can also mean placing an order on the internet or calling to sample a product in a free trial offer. Success in Direct Response means getting the consumer to take instant action in response to the ad.

There are many different steps to creating a successful Direct Response Short Form campaign but the script is the blueprint that determines all the other elements. A great creative offer follows the ‘problem’/‘solution’ formula and engages the consumer’s attention within the first 10 seconds. For example, “Do you love cooking delicious pasta but hate the mess?” If the consumer relates to the problem, then we have successfully gained her attention. We then introduce the ‘solution’- the product or service being sold. The ‘solution’ should make the consumer’s life better and easier in some way. - Making a Successful Short Form Direct Response Spot What Will Make The Phones Ring? DRTV 101

By Jill Albert

You know that device you listen to day after day on your way to the office, it’s on at the gym, you in fact SING ALONG with it when your favorite song plays, yell at it when RUSH LIMBAUGH is ranting or your favorite team misses a shot. You have come to rely on your favorite radio station for traffic information and breaking news, as well as a recommendation for a new restaurant, how to entertain yourself in the coming weekend, what retailer is having a sale and how to survive in today’s economy. It is true… most of us have an emotional bond with our favorite radio station.

Radio continues to be a staple in America’s daily diet with over 90% of working adults listening two plus hours each day, and reaching over 94% of all people weekly. Radio provides target ability, relationship marketing, frequency as well as REACH and is present with just about every one of those emerging technologies that we marketers are trying to use to reach consumers. Internet users listen to radio more than any other media while surfing the web and over 45% of Internet radio listening is streamed to local stations.
- So what about RADIO?

By Angie Scheribel

The best opportunity for increasing return on your advertising investment right now is the Hispanic market.

If Hispanics are not on your marketing radar, the chances are you’re a few steps behind your competition. The U.S. Hispanic population is growing at a rapid rate and their buying power is growing with them.


According to Hispanic Market Weekly (March 2, 2009), Hispanic purchasing power has reached $980 Billion and is expected to climb to $1.3 Trillion by 2013. They are the fastest growing group in the U.S. accounting for 50% of this decade’s US population growth. With a population of 46 Million today Hispanics are expected to be a full 20% of the U.S. population by 2020. The community’s purchasing power represents the ninth largest economy in the world- larger than the GNP of Spain, Mexico, or Brazil, according to the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility

More and more advertisers have been seeing the need to reach this growing segment of the population. From 2000-2004, Hispanic directed budgets from the top 50 advertisers grew 87% (from $658 Million to $1.23 Billion). Major advertisers such as Proctor & Gamble and McDonalds have continued to increase their spend in the Hispanic market, and have seen continued returns for their investment. Hispanics are generally known as being very brand loyal, and see companies like McDonalds as being invested in the Hispanic market for the long haul because of their advertising efforts. Enormous numbers of household and personal products find Hispanics a 30 to 50% better prospect to make a sale.

- Marketing to Hispanics in a Down Economy

- By Alexis Rosenberg

In this weakening economy, many companies have cut their advertising budgets along with their workforce. This does not bode well for the advertising world at large. It becomes a domino effect with the result being Newspapers and Magazines, whose livelihood depend on advertising revenue, folding. To counteract this effect, DISH Network is in the fortunate position of expanding.

DISH Network’s main headquarters are in Denver. A little over a year ago, a New York advertising sales office for DISH Network was opened. This was spearheaded by Mr. Michael Finn, who came over from Viacom. Now, there are salespeople in both offices, establishing a greater reach into the marketplace.

Brian Norris, previously from Viacom and Lifetime, heads up the Direct Response team. By selecting a team of DR salespeople from throughout the industry, each person’s business relationships could be utilized for expansion.

Instead of standing by while revenue declined, our new office and expansion has helped DISH’s Direct Response business grow by adding new advertisers on the air. Changes need to happen when the economy is declining, but it doesn’t always have to be job cuts as DISH Network has proven.
Expanding further into the Market with the opening of a New York Sales Office

Testimonials, a staple of direct response advertising, may be a tried-and-true tactic for arresting consumer attention and eliciting response, but they must be handled deftly to avoid cliché and audience cynicism. So how does a marketer ensure they get it right? The following tips are designed to help assist you in avoiding the pitfalls and getting the testimonial mix right:

1. Look for Quality, Not Quantity: While many infomercials will feature quick sound bites of various consumers singing their product’s praise along the lines of, “It’s great!” “I love it!” “It changed my life!”, 20 years of focus group experience suggests that nothing tanks interest nor invites skepticism more than this tactic. One reason may be that the approach has been so overused that audiences simply consider these sequences one big unbelievable yawn. There’s a real distinction between someone who is an evangelist for a brand and someone who is merely satisfied. The best kind of brand evangelist is also a natural born influencer – it’s that ebullient force of nature we all know who freely extols the virtues of a product to all of their friends and inspires them to follow suit. This is the sort of testimonial you’ll ideally have in your marketing arsenal, but you must allow them time to breath and tell their story.

2. At the Same Time, You May Need Quantity: It’s easy to say, “Hey, go round up some brand evangelists,” but while you can try and screen for them, until you turn on that camera, you won’t know exactly what you’ve got. One very successful direct marketer suggested that a 10 to 1 ratio was required to cull out a broadcast-worthy testimonial! Those are pretty daunting numbers, but then when you consider the failure rate of DRTV programs, you have to ask yourself, “Do you want to solve this problem in pre-production or deal with it once the camera is rolling?” That brings us to…

3. Don’t Rush the Process: One of the biggest mistakes we’ve observed is this: the marketer says, “Testimonials? No problem! We get letters…” then proceeds to truncate the amount of time required to identify and line up great testimonials. Concurrently, the production train gets rolling until it runs head on into what one head of production wryly observed are the three most expensive words in commercial production – “Client will provide.” The entire process turns into a compromised, muddled mess with not only less than ideal testimonials, but fewer of them to choose from in the edit suite. Which is one reason you might want to consider this: - Tips for Getting Great Testimonials

By Beth Simonson Handler

Surprisingly New Low Cost Advertising Opportunities emerge amidst Economic Quake

The Global economic crisis has fostered bad news for industries across the board. In the world of Cable and Television advertising, there are a few who see the future looking much brighter as low cost high quality media has leveled the playing field, for businesses that absolutely must expose their products to the mass audience.Low Cost Media for Agencies, Media Brokers, Marketers and Entrepreneurs

By Joey Hastie

There are a number of ways to obtain your ROI goals using the available DR outlets. The question you should consider is, "Am I effectively buying the opportunities that are available to me?" The market is an evolving place and currently a majority of the DR efforts are focused on Television. Of course, this makes perfect sense. This has been the formula that has created a multi billion dollar industry for years. But the digital world is progressive and these changes have sparked an assortment of new opportunities for marketers to take advantage of. Targeting specific demographics becomes more and more of a fragmented process because consumers are accessing media in non-traditional ways. Advertisers using the old model of "broad" casting are finding that obtaining their ROI goals are becoming increasingly challengingMarketing DR Across Platforms

By Sean Patrick King

Let’s face it; the economy is in the gutter, the real estate market is on the verge of collapsing as the stock market did, and to top that all off thousands are losing their jobs each day. With out trying to sound too much like a politician, let’s have some faith in our leaders and each other and keep moving forward.

We are at a crossroads, much like a career change or new professional opportunity. Career minded individuals are going to keep their focus on the future. “What’s next, what can I do to change my situation, how can I improve.” Let’s use those same fundamentals to move forward with our campaigns. We need to take the same approach to DR that any career minded individual would use to move forward in their career.Keep Looking Ahead

By Frank Nichols

The old adage, "Throwing mud against the wall to see what sticks," has relevance across many businesses, especially those whose rate of success is directly proportional to the number of trials it takes to attain goals. It is appropriate in many forms of marketing where random learning plays a part in ultimate success or failure.

It seems to be the accepted and widely used methodology for designing media strategies for many extended DRTV campaigns — both long and short form. But, is that the best targeting methodology? Is there a better way?Throwing It Against the Wall

By Frank Nichols

The rapidly changing world of communications and advertising is beginning to fit the paradigms of exponential transition as defined socially by Alan Toffler in “Future Shock” and technologically by Nicholas Negroponte in “Being Digital.” Since society and technology are intrinsic elements of change in marketing methodology, it’s easy to see why the basic principles of direct response media are in a constant evolution that affects not only the increasing number of available media conveying advertising, but also the modes of delivery and, in turn, the economics of generating consumer response. It's Not Your Father's Same Old DRTV

By Brandon Reynolds

As a Direct Response marketer, how often have you experienced the frustration of trying to maintain consistent soft-offer performance (conversions and upsells) while increasing your call volume? Most direct marketers know this roller coaster ride all too well. A soft-offer campaign is performing well, so you buy more media. Suddenly the numbers go down, so you have to pull back on media spending. And so it goes. Moving into the future with Dedicated Agents

By Shari Altman

It’s always a topic of conversation among DR marketers – What’s “hot”? But what is “hot” today may be a bad bet in terms of profits and sales. The so-called “flash in the pan” like the “pet rock” of yesteryear is not a trend to follow. There was only one “Pet Rock”.

So let’s take a look instead at what trends are popular, with an eye towards those that have longevity and thus opportunity for sales and profits not just today, but over the years to come. The key – long-lived marketing trends are always based on real societal changes. Offer and Product Trends in DR - Fall 2008

By Leo Gorcey

When was the last time you saw a good movie?


Did your favorite actor sound like she was reading a script? Probably not. If you’re like most moviegoers, you were caught up in the emotion of the story and wondering what was going to happen next. But somewhere at the beginning of the movie-making process, that actor who just made you laugh out loud and even cry, was handed a script and told by the director, “These are your lines. This is what we want you to say when we film you.”
So how come it sounded so real? What's in a Script?

By Robert Graham

The road to DR profitability is more obtainable due in part to payment options that make consumer purchases simple and affordable. One of the hottest techniques is the use of credit card "multi-pay” or “easy-payments” credit terms. Direct Response Payment Options Lead Buyers to Act Now!