Develop a TV Campaign This exercise will help you define a strategy and plan for your television advertising campaign.
DEVELOP YOUR STRATEGY
What’s your primary objective for the campaign? Generate new leads Direct sales Branding/keep in front of the market Comments: Who is the target audience for this campaign? Be specific. When you focus on a very specific audience, you’ll do a far better job of designing an ad that speaks directly to their needs.
Do your audience members fall within any of these groups? AUDIENCE TYPE IMPLICATIONS (check all that apply) C-‐levels Make sure the ad is eye-‐catching and benefit-‐oriented; the offer needs to be compelling for a C-‐level to take advantage of it Technical Make sure you provide detail in the ad and offer more detail in the call-‐to-‐ action Creative Make sure it’s engaging and inspiring
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“Newbies”
If the topic is new to your audience, beware of jargon they may not understand. Focus on benefits and offer additional information via a phone call and a special landing page on your website.
After seeing the campaign, what action do you want these audience members to take? What’s your offer?
“The offer” refers to what your prospects get by responding to your ad; for example, receiving your value-‐ packed email newsletter, a special sale price, free use of a piece of software for a month, a white paper, or a spot in an important seminar.
Be careful about bribing your prospects, especially if you know nothing about them. You also don’t want to artificially create a lot of sales appointments that will inundate the sales force and waste time. It’s not just the response rate that matters, it’s also the revenue produced by the campaign.
How valuable is the offer for these audience members? Can you make it more valuable? What information do you need to deliver in order for this audience to take you up on your offer? RESOURCES & TIMING What resources will you need during the planning and execution stages?
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ACTIVITY Research and place media buys
HANDLED BY
Copywriting / scriptwriting / production
Graphic design / production
Fulfillment (describe)
What are the deadlines for your campaign? STEP DATE
NOTES Exercise 551 can help you evaluate whether you should handle it in-‐ house or with a buyer/agency Copywriting & Graphic Design can help you create a “Creative Brief” Copywriting & Graphic Design can help you with design and production Marketing Campaigns can help you plan your fulfillment
PERSON RESPONSIBLE
NOTES
Campaign strategy & plan
Media plan complete (media to use, dates to run, ad length, etc.) Creative brief (requirements) for the ad Create concept and script Ad production-‐ taping
Ad – ready for placement Fulfillment processes ready to go Ad runs Campaign success measured
Ad production-‐editing due
Notes:
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CONTENT & CREATIVE List the general content you’ll need to include in the ad and the amount of time you’ll need – for example, a small monologue, short phrases, or a story? CONTENT TO INCLUDE IN THE AD APPROXIMATE LENGTH If you have any initial creative concepts for the campaign, list them here.
GOALS
Now develop specific quantitative goals for your campaign – the number of new customers, leads, website visits, etc., that you’re trying to generate. If your ad is part of a broader campaign that includes other media, it’s more difficult to measure the performance of an ad by itself. For example, if a prospect sees your television ad 3 times and then responds to your online ad, it’s not accurate to say the television ads were useless and that the online ad was responsible for the response. When creating a broader campaign, you should measure your overall goals and ROI at the CAMPAIGN level. You can work to tweak the individual media within the campaign, but remember that each media plays a role. It’s an art and a science to measure and improve results. If you are running a multi-‐media campaign, you can skip this section – do it only if you’re using television by itself to reach a specific goal.
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What are your specific numeric (quantitative) goals for the campaign? 537-‐A can help you develop the goal(s) and the numbers. GOALS Notes:
PROJECTED RESPONSE RATES
It’s difficult to project a response rate because there are so many variables that can significantly impact your results: The station’s target audience The market’s need for your product Placement within the programming The timing of the ad The quality of the offer What your competition is doing at the time The creative – how well it speaks to the How well the audience knows your company audience Instead of making a wild guess, use these general guidelines to help you make a more educated one: METHOD FOR ESTIMATING RESPONSE RATES NOTES If it’s a large campaign, you can run a test ad and use that rate as your guide or revise the campaign to shoot for a higher response Your company’s past history on similar campaigns Industry averages Educated guess
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Remember, however, that if your market has never heard of you and/or you don’t connect with them frequently, you’re unlikely to get a flood of responses from your campaign. You may want to consult the sales rep from the station to find out what other advertisers have generated in your market. Enter the response rate you’ll use in your projections: Plug this figure into 537-‐A, and the worksheet will tell you how many impressions you’ll need in order to hit your goals. For future reference, you can use 537-‐G to track your campaigns and response rates over time.
REACH & FREQUENCY GOALS
A majority of the time, media sales reps will quote you a flat rate for a particular time slot and ad length. It may help you to become familiar with CPM (cost per thousand) calculations so you can compare mediums and the number of market impressions each one offers. If you’re not used to CPM, here are a few handy calculations: Goal: Total number of people to reach It's a complex process to develop a media plan to achieve a specific combination of reach & frequency. If you’re not an experienced media buyer, it’s easier to just focus on "total targeted impressions,” which is reach*frequency (gross rating points) or the total number of people you reach * the number of times you reach each person.
How many times do you want to reach each person with your ad? Goal: Frequency A good rule of thumb is 3 times, but remember a marketing campaign is a series of touches with your market to communicate a key message. The key word is "series" since it usually takes multiple touches for your audience to recognize your message and then respond.
Now multiply the two numbers above – this is your goal number of impressions needed for the campaign. Goal: Total Targeted Impressions (reach * frequency) If you have any comments about your media plan, enter them here:
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MEASUREMENT Television can be used for direct response, although consumers tend to view direct response campaigns as “infomercials.” Typically, advertisers will use television to increase their branding & market visibility, both of which are often difficult to track. However, if you’re using a strong call-‐to-‐action, you should track the calls or site visits that the ad generates. Think about this issue now so that if you need to measure, you use the right tracking system (i.e. unique 800 number, unique URL.) How will you track each of your goals? QUANTITATIVE GOAL HOW WILL YOU MEASURE THIS VALUE? Will you need any additional tracking systems to help you accurately measure performance?
PROGRAMMING
In order to reach your target audience, what type of shows and station programming will you consider for your media plan?
ROI & BUDGET
What’s your Return on Investment (ROI) goal for the campaign? You may want to lower your normal goal if the campaign is focused on branding, as it’s extremely difficult to measure. [Return on Investment can help]
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ROI GOAL Use standard ROI threshold Use a modified ROI threshold This campaign is part of a larger campaign and it’s too difficult to evaluate the revenue that just this part will generate. Instead, use a Cost per X to measure success. What is X? (It should be one of your qualitative criteria above – for example, cost per inquiry, cost per order, cost per lead, etc.) What’s your anticipated Cost per X?
WHAT IS THE VALUE?
Comments: Use 537-‐B and 537-‐C to outline your cost and profit projections. You can review your projected ROI and also see the maximum amount you can spend on the campaign and meet your ROI goal. MAXIMUM BUDGET Yes No – if no, you’ll need to either lower your ROI expectations, refocus the campaign to increase your quantitative IS THIS BUDGET FEASIBLE? results, or find alternative ways to execute the campaign at a lower budget. Comments:
FULFILLMENT PROCESS
How does the audience respond to your offer?
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Do you need any fulfillment materials (literature, demos, etc.) for the campaign? What else do you need to do to respond to and process inquiries?
TESTING PLAN
It’s wise to test any campaign before spending your entire budget. If you’re considering multiple stations or programs, run the same ad in two different ones to see which generates the best response, or test different calls to action and offers. Your goal is to find the ads and stations that generate the best response, then use those for the remainder of your campaign. Use 534 to help you with your testing. Which elements will you consider testing? POTENTIAL TEST CRITERIA NOTES Different sites Test the same ad on two different stations (with comparable placement) to see which generates the best response.
Ad placement: Dayparts, show, etc. Ad design
Test the same ad on the same station but in a different daypart or show placement. Test two different scripts in the same timeslot.
Notes:
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