Should You Be Advertising on TV?
When most people think of television advertising, they think about the commercials they see on network TV. Such advertising gives the advertiser an immense reach – sometimes to as many as hundreds of millions of people. But the greater the reach, the less targeted the audience. For every person who might be interested in your product, there will be a hundred or a thousand with absolutely zero interest.
If you’re advertising Nike footwear or Coca-Cola, you want this kind of reach. But if your product is more specialized, the huge expense of network TV exposure becomes an exorbitant bet.
For most businesses, television advertising should be a supplemental endeavor restricted by a limited budget. Focus on smaller audiences, especially targeted ones – TV channels and programs that concentrate on market niches such as investing, real estate, pets, home shopping, building wealth, and so on.
With the growth of cable and regional TV, it’s easier to find channels and programs that cater to the prospects you want to reach. If you spend some time looking at the growth of targeted and local advertising on these new cable stations, you will understand how viable this type of market can be.
All these channels need advertising revenue to remain on the air. And because the industry is bigger and more competitive now, many stations are offering very affordable rate packages, within easy reach of even small businesses and organizations.
Mary Ellen Tribby
MaryEllen Tribby is a business consultant and coach to entrepreneurs in the information publishing and digital marketing arena. She led Early to Rise from May 2006 to January 2010 as Publisher & CEO. She has also served as President of Weiss Research, managing divisions of Forbes, Globe Communications, Times Mirror Magazines and Crain’s New York Business. She currently heads up The CEO's Edge and WorkingMomsOnly.com.