tv

We are just starting a TV ad. This is a bit of a budgetary stretch for us, but we are hoping for a great year of growth and know we need to spend a little money to do it. Our ad is just 15 seconds long. We used one of the static ads as background with some bullet points. There is a lovely female voice that highlights a few of our services, and our current special. The spots you choose determine the price. We took one spot at ‘daybreak news’ (6-7am) and one spot during The Young and the Restless soap. The cost is $10 each time. We just started this on MOnday 3/26. So far we are feeling really good about the extra exposure, but don’t have a good idea yet on the results. To help offset some of this expense, we have bartered some work with the TV station. Our plan is to have a 30 second ad as well. This way we will alternate ad and this will give us varied exposure and messages.

Production cost was $80/hr. and I think it took them less that 2 hours. It’s been running a week now. Business is starting to go nuts so I think it’s starting to work. . . a little nice weather isn’t hurting either.

This is a hard thing to evaluate totally accurately. I do know that the business gained has more than paid for the ad so far. Nothing dramatic, but it’s been just another way to pound Heaven’s Best into potential customers heads. I look for it to be gradually better as time goes on. I just need to have the nerve to continue. I think a 30 second commercial would be much more effective and look to do this in the future.

So, right now our advertising strategy goes like this. Yellow page ad of course. Newspaper ads at very specific times. TV commercial . . . 2-3 spots per day, and target marketing mailers to very specific exclusive neighborhoods.

In my area (northern Iowa) spring is a great time to run ads. The weather straightens out and spring cleaning is in the air. It’s the time of year for graduations and weddings as well. So, “the fish are bite’n” and I want to catch as many as I can.

We will maybe run an add in June. Always in September. Kids go back to school and mothers are ready to deep clean again. Our September ad usually carries the months of October and November up until Thanksgiving.

I never run newspaper ads during the slower times. It’s just wasted money.

I have found out through the years, radio only helps to build credibility not results. Radio really helps when you add additional advertising such as fliers, TV, newspaper, etc. As I said, it seems to support something else to give it more credibility, thus better results. Radio alone hasn’t done much for results for me.

This is an update on my personal experience with tv advertising. The overall experience was positive. We are closing in on our best month ever and I’ve been doing this since 2001. We had at least 5 mentions of the ad just last week. We ran the ad for about 3 weeks and haven’t for the last 2. We will run the ad again. This was not the only advertising we did during this time. Refer to earlier posts if interested. As was mentioned by Loren and Gordon, it really helps with our name recognition.