Direct Response (DRTV) with Brand Marketing

By Rick Petry

Many products are successfully sold via short-form direct response television, yet programs that are asking for the order, versus just trying to generate a lead, frequently require a full two minutes. The one hundred and twenty seconds is required because it takes time for a commercial to set up a problem, offer the solution in the form of the product’s unique selling proposition, and then do an offer build and provide the requisite order information. However, whenever a marketer is putting together a “deuce”, as the industry sometimes refers to it, they should also include a 60 second version of their commercial for the following reasons:

Two-minute short-form DRTV inventory can be challenging to clear depending upon what is happening in the marketplace. General advertisers pay a premium for guaranteed placement, whereas DR advertisers are immediately preemptible. Therefore the strength of the general media marketplace determines how much inventory is left over for DR and that inventory can ebb and flow depending upon a variety of factors. For example, if a show under-delivers the audience of a particular demographic that was promised to the general advertiser, the network or station may run free airings to make up the audience shortfall. This siphons inventory away from DR. - READ THE ARTICLE: Why Short-Form DRTV Marketers Need a 60 Second Spot

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 Rick Petry

The other day while holiday shopping, I found myself in a major national bookstore chain poised and ready to pull the trigger on a purchase, when my wife suggested I look up the price of the item from a competitor. Armed with my iPhone, I was able to price shop on the Net and discovered I could save $6 on this one purchase from a certain ubiquitous e-tailer. Since I was already planning on placing an order of sufficient magnitude with this purveyor of e-commerce that would guarantee me free shipping, and the purchase in my hand possessed no timeliness factor, I abandoned the bricks and mortar retailer’s merchandise and left the store to go surfing later. You’ve no doubt heard of virtual cart abandonment; welcome to the era of real world purchase interruptus.

While the consumer in me might enjoy the pressure to push down prices this competition creates, the marketer in me cringes at the way this dynamic creates leverage that erodes prices and margins. The scenario described above is perhaps the ultimate proof that a truly Darwinian rule of law has taken hold – that with the pervasiveness of money back guarantees and liberal return policies creating a level playing field – that it is pretty much price, and to a much lesser extent availability, that drives the marketplace. That being the case, and with a scant few retailers dominating the marketplace, how on earth is a manufacturer or marketer suppose to compete and make a reasonable profit?
- READ FULL DIRECT RESPONSE ARTICLE: Marketers! Combat Price Erosion With Direct Response

By Hal Altman

This year, the retail industry has experienced the closing, bankruptcy or near bankruptcy of some of the largest and most successful retail names of the last twenty-five years. Others such as Wal Mart, Costco, Sam’s, Target, and Bed Bath and Beyond seem to not only survive, but are also able to show profits in our unstable economy.

What does this mean to the Direct Response industry? Less outlets to sell product that television, radio or web has worked hard to advertise, establish and create a brand for.

Retail chains have not only breathed life into Direct Response products, but in most cases, successfully outsold traditional Direct Response sales exponentially.
In tough economic times, retailers search for recognized Direct Response product and know that with continued television and radio coverage, combined with retail exposure, this can be a win-win situation for all.

The next question is how do Direct Marketers prepare and get into the lucrative world of retail? The answer is easy, and doesn’t cost any more to prepare for retail distribution while you introduce your product via traditional Direct Response channels.

Look into a retail distribution company that can guide you through the process of packaging your merchandise so that it can be easily and inexpensively ready for a rush retail test. You don’t want to ever be caught in a position of not being able to immediately furnish your product for a retail test if the opportunity arises. - READ FULL DIRECT RESPONSE ARTICLE: Having a Plan Will Save you Money

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

By Rick Petry

With the world mired in the thick of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, a number of products being marketed using direct response advertising are thriving above the fray. What are some of the common characteristics of these goods and their attendant campaigns that are bucking the tide? And what lessons can be uncovered that might help marketers and their supply chain attain similar success?

When basic security is threatened -- from job to housing to financial stability -- one natural course of action is to turn inward, to take stock. In that process, people come to terms with what they truly value. It has often been said that without one’s health, you have nothing, that all of the other things in life that may seem important are rendered meaningless. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a review of the Infomercial Monitoring Service (IMS) report reveals that health and fitness products comprise over one-third of both the top 25 ranked infomercial and short-form campaigns currently running. - Direct Response: The Hope for Recessionary Woes?

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 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