TV watching patterns and use of other Media have changed how TV Ads are used, image by Paul Townsend

No one of the following questions should automatically mean you do or don’t go ahead and use TV Advertising but they may give you some idea whether it is right for your business.

Are you selling B2B, B2C or both

If you are selling to B2B then generally TV advertising won’t work, even if people who work in the right positions in businesses do watch TV they may not want to think about work, you may have more luck with start-up services of course and those to the self employed. If you sell B2C this doesn’t of course automatically mean you should use TV advertising as the following questions will show. As for selling to both B2B and B2C you will probably have a different marketing mix for each but a TV ad aimed at one or the other may confuse the message to others.

How large an area do you cover?

You need to be able to cover at least an ITV region really to make TV advertising make sense, or at least a few cities within that area. Having said this more independent stores and businesses used to advertise on TV than do now, if you have something that will attract people from across a region such as a tourist attraction then TV advertising may be worth considering.

Do you have the capacity to sell enough to cover the costs?

TV advertising if done well has the potential to bring in a lot of demand but first make sure you can meet that demand or at least meet enough of the demand to cover the costs of TV advertising and make a profit.

Is your message or are your Brand Values easy to explain in 20-30 seconds?

It may be that people already know who you are and what you do in which case a TV ad can just remind them that you are still about. Otherwise though you need to make sure that you have something that can be effectively explained within the length of the ad or else TV advertising is not for you; Direct Mail, Direct Sales or Online are all options you should look at. At the same time of course Video can still be valuable but perhaps a 5 minute mini documentary on your website or even sent out by mail on DVD would be more effective.

Are you selling the same product, service or USP to most of your customers?

TV means showing one ad at a time and you therefore need to make sure that it firstly will get the right message to most of your potential customers and that for those potential customers who would ideally be sent a slightly different message the TV at least does not alienate them. With Direct Mail, some online and various other Marketing you have the opportunity to send different messages to different segments.

Do you have access to people in house or at any agency with the right competencies to create and support the campaign?

Don’t assume that your creative department are up to making a TV Ad there is a lot of skill required and as episodes of the apprentice shows it is much harder than it looks. Unless you have experienced people in house you will need to use an agency, this gets expensive and may make little sense for a short term ad or ad only to show on niche digital channels.

Could you distribute a video ad another way, e.g. online?

Having a video ad doesn’t mean it has to be put on TV, if it is put on TV then it may only need to be shown briefly if it is good enough to go viral. Of course if you are advertising an end of January sale with 20 seconds of products and prices then you aren’t going to be able to do this online and certainly not within the amount of time you have.

Is your awareness level currently high or low and going up or down?

If you have low awareness then TV can give it a big boost, gaining awareness of your brand values and exactly why a customer should use you is more difficult through TV and so you are perhaps best to use online marketing if you have good awareness of your brand but poor awareness of what you do and stand for. Also if you currently aren’t using TV and your awareness is already going up then TV may add little extra; if your awareness is on the way down then TV may help but you still need to find a way to continue communicating with customers and those who might become customers: TV is an expensive and usually fairly ineffective way to do this especially once you have contact information for your customers.

Can you integrate a TV ad into other communications and lead to interaction with customers?

With online marketing it is often easy to get a customer communicating and interacting with you often through social media or your own website and this includes from video ads. TV ads can do the same thing but with a more passive audience you often need more incentive for them to do this and do it straight away before they forget what they were going to do and why.

Do most of your target market watch TV? Do more of your target market use the net or use the net for longer each day?

TV is a great medium for reaching people who spend a lot of time watching TV, this seems obvious but some brands seem to use TV to reach audiences who spend far more time online and are far more likely to interact with brands they see online: teenagers are the obvious ones but also people who use the internet in their jobs; pensioners and housewife’s on the other hand may be best communicated with through TV.

Will TV advertising boost distribution?

Many Supermarkets and stores still expect products, especially new products, to use TV advertising and won’t list your products without it; you may therefore get more than just awareness through TV advertising.

Does as seen on TV mean anything to your customers?

Do you need to add credibility to your brand?

New brands and brands that have had bad press may need to add credibility. Online businesses, with little offline presence especially, struggle to build up trust or brand values that would normally be associated with established offline businesses. TV does add credibility in the eyes of some consumers and for some ‘As seen on TV’ does mean something, this is likely to be the case most of all with less price sensitive customers and B2C customers though.

Is there a digital TV channel or a few channels that targets your specific audience?

Leger holidays sponsor programming on the History channel for their Battlefield tour offering: TV advertising though mainly used for FMCGs and products and services with mass appeal can actually target groups very well if there is a channel that fits or even a program that you can sponsor, for example Ancestry websites sponsoring genealogy programs. With digital channels and program sponsorship you may be able to get great deals for programs that have low viewing figures but which are 90% the right people you are targeting.