Cable Advertising Question

[Aaron Cadieux]

Nick,

Yeah, you think on the same lines as me. I discussed this w/ the cable company and told them my target demo was women 40+ who were technologically inept. hahaha.

Here’s why I chose to market DVD transfer serviecs. I was hired to edit a show that will be airing nationally on DirecTV this spring. I am working at a reduced rate, so as a perk, the producers offered me free advertising. I get to run a 30-second spot every episode. There are 13 episodes, each airing twice for a total of 26 showings. As a result, I needed to produce a spot that could bring in business. The only service that I offer that would work nationally is DVD transfer services. Not everyone needs a video produced for their business, not everyone is going to hire a freelancer from thousands of miles away to shoot an event, but EVERYBODY has old home movies lying around on tape and/or film. And most of those people woudn’t think to have the movies transfered unless it was suggested to them (like in a 30-second spot). Once I had the spot produced for DirecTV, I figured I should look into running it on local cable as well.

Best,

Aaron

[Aaron Cadieux]

Mark,

I appreciate the advice you were going to give me. I actually am trying to get away from wedding/event videography. I know it pays well, but I don’t have the stomach for it. One avenue that I am pushing lately is sports videography. I have been getting lots of phone calls for high school athletes that need recruiting highlight reels for college coaches.

-Aaron

[Steve Kownacki]

I have 2 thoughts on your last post, the major one being What if your ad actually works?! A national ad, can you field 100, 250, 500 phone calls? And then are you capable of getting the work done?

I don’t do the home transfers – I tell them to by a unit for $70 at Target, but will do the same VHS transfer for a business client at $45/hr for the opportunity to get a foot in the door.

Although many stores take orders for the transfers at their film counters, they do send them out to other facilities for the actual dub. The biggest selling point to local customers is that their precious memories stay safe in your hands in your shop – not some unknown place and trusted to a delivery dude or the mail. Which is counter to your soliciting people to mail stuff to you. And can your mailbox hold it all? And do you have time to do the shipping?

Does DirectTV let you target markets/regions, or is it all or nothing? Maybe you could do an east coast test run for instance? Although keep in mind the 6 views per set of eyes as Nick said and if it only runs 1 time per show, well 1/2 your buy is eaten up.

Steve

[Mark Suszko]

You may not like this idea, but if you are getting a free slot in the program, don’t advertise your own services in it. Make some REAL money. Use the spot to SELL some product direct-response, or go out and find another advertiser who will pay you to put something in that spot that will make money in a nationwide airing. Tap into your inner Billy Mays.

[Steve Kownacki]

Mark gets 4 stars!

Steve

[Mark Suszko]

As to the sports recording thing, Aaron, I would look at a google Adsense/AdWords campaign based on ESPN’s web site, and any other sports web sites that would best relate to your regional market.

What you want is for an ad pop-up when people are looking up the final scores or local sports report on the high school and college games every week. There’s an aggregator for your target demographic of ambitious parents and their kids dreaming of college and the big leagues.

I would start maybe with a web ad on the sports page of the local paper and local TV news station: “I help the scouts check you out! AC’s sports portfolio video services, customized presentations for your sports career”.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Nick Griffin] “I’m not sure that broadcasting (even when it’s cable) will provide a cost effective return for what is, in essence, a specialized service.”

My thought exactly, Nick.

There’s no way Aaron will make his money back on a media buy like this. It is just TOO narrow a product pitch and the cost is too high.

This kind of thing is perfect for something like Google Adwords, but is definitely a poor buy on cable, even if the spots are all focused on business channels, etc.

As an example: Kathlyn and I *used* to advertise our production business in the Yellow Pages and after a few years of calls regarding “Hey, can you tape the movie I just rented from the video store without getting those scrambled lines?” and stuff like that, we gave up. I can’t recall ever once getting a legitimate client that we didn’t first get ourselves by going after them directly on our own, or that came from a referral from someone they knew.

Pitching something as specialized as transfer services is going to have the TV scratching their heads and going “Huh?$#@!?” — while Aaron’s bank account gets siphoned to the tune of a few dollars per scratch. (I say specialized, because as Mike Cohen points out Wal-Mart has been doing this for years. The market for this is largely theirs. Trying to take the few jobs that remain in this field for $1000 a month is just not a good investment.)

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
CEO, CreativeCOW.net

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[Ron Gerber]

They want me to sign a 6-month commitment for $4200

Having worked in cable for a bunch of years I can tell you that the AE that wanted you to sign a 6 month commitment has a boss that is asking for revenue projections. So by asking you to sign on for 6 months they are just trying to make budget numbers look good. The 6 month contract also helps lock in your air time rates.

If you want to advertise, ask them what their cancelation policy is. From my general experience, they won’t hold you to the contract – they probably will just ask you for a week or 2 weeks notice to cancel.

Good luck on the new venture.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Mark Suszko] “Tap into your inner Billy Mays.”

Wouldn’t that require a seance?

Sorry.

Ron Lindeboom

[Mark Suszko]

Not if you send me only three easy payments at $19.95 each, for the do-it yourself seance-o-matic!

My advice stands as far as the free spot on Dish; find an existing product or service advertiser with something that appeals to the target audience of this show you edited, sell the air time you have to THEM, at a markup, of course. Invest the income back into your business. This is actually what the show’s producers are probaly doing, but they didn’t want to do the legwork to find a client advertiser for that empty spot. This is your chance, Aaron, to wheel and deal and be your OWN ad agency. This is how you move up to become an account executive, make mad bank, and get some control of your destiny.