ActionCOACH recently released a TV advert which will be shown on various SKY channels this summer. This got me thinking about how much it costs to run an advert on TV, and whether it’s a viable marketing strategy for smaller businesses.

So, I ran a poll on LinkedIn to see what people’s perception of the cost would be. Unsurprisingly the feeling was that TV advertising costs are astronomical, and the whole concept is outdated. But further research showed that it’s actually not as expensive as you might think. An added bonus is, with all the channels now available to us, it’s even easier to hone in on your target audience. The pandemic has had few upsides, but it has helped to bring down the cost of advertising in this way.

Know your target audience

It’s fair to say that you’ll need a very substantial budget if you want to go for an advert on a major network during peak time, and cover a highly populated region like London.  But if you can do things on a much smaller scale and are selective about certain regions, you don’t have to break the bank to get your advert out there .

My research has shown that TV advertising can cost anywhere from £3 to £000s, depending on the number of viewers who are likely to see your advert.  It’s obvious that an ad during a repeat of “Wheeler Dealers” on at 4 am on the lifestyle channel will not get as many views as one during a killer episode of Coronation Street at 7.30 pm on ITV.

But if you know about marketing, then you will know that targeting your adverts is key, and the more you target, the better ROI you will get.  So if you happen to be selling car related products, then a small audience of car enthusiasts at 4am is going to get you a much better ROI than millions of general people who’ll be making a cup of tea in the break of Corrie!

The beauty is that with digital transmission, the production companies can measure their viewing numbers very accurately, especially on download channels, which is why the costs vary so much. For example:

  • An advert on a small digital channel (like a sports channel) that has on average 1,500 viewers could cost you as little as £3 per 30 second advert.
  • An advert across all regions nationally on ITV at peak time, on the other hand, would cost you approximately £55,000 for 30 seconds.
  • Break this down into regions, and prices vary from £300 for a low population region to £1,400 in Wales to £20,000 in London during weekend television schedules.

So you can see that focusing in on where your target market is watching can make TV advertising much cheaper than you would initially think. You do, of course, have to factor in the production costs of the video. However, your ad could be used multiple times and on other marketing channels such as social media and YouTube, so you may find that again the cost per advert is lower than you would think.

In order to assess whether TV advertising is the right strategy for you, the final thing you need to do is to look at the Lifetime Value of a new customer. With this to hand, you can calculate the real ROI of the advert. If one customer was worth £50,000 to you, then spending £50,000 on an advert may not seem so mad.

Finally, if you do decide to create a TV advert, as with any other method of marketing, you must follow the principle of AIDA.

 ATTENTION -> INTEREST -> DESIRE -> ACTION

  • Attention – Make your advert stand out form the crowd. You have to grab the viewers’ attention, and make sure that they do not go and get that cup of tea during your ad!
  • Interest – Now you’ve got your consumers’ attention, you need to keep it. You need a hook, something to make them stay and engage with your message.
  • Desire – Now you have their interest, you can focus on either the dissatisfaction of not having your product, or the vision of what life would be like with it. Or if you can, do both!
  • Action – Finally you must leave them with a call to action, i.e. a phone number, email or web address where potential customers can get in contact or get more info. Remember that you don’t have the budget of the big corporations to build your brand. That means you need to engage with and nurture your target market using cheaper methods.

Don’t forget to test and measure

When you do go live with a marketing strategy, you must test and measure all marketing results, whether that be TV, or any other method you decide on.  Remember the saying, “What gets measured, gets improved.” This is vital, as it enables you to assess what marketing strategies are working for you, and what needs tweaking or rethinking.

And don’t forget, any marketing should be an INVESTMENT, not a COST.  Put simply, each £1 you spend on marketing needs to make you more than £1 in gross profit!

 

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