Direct Response Television Blog

With hundreds of diets on the market, companies are constantly looking for new and better ways to advertise their products. The diet industry has been using DRTV ads for years. Companies such as Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and LA Weight Loss Program are just a few. These companies use DRTV to show real life weight loss results, give order information and show just how easy it is to order your food via phone or internet. DRTV advertising is perfect for companies such as these. It gives customers the freedom of ordering from home, eliminating additional food shopping and the commercial is able to show the results of other customers.

Working with a DRTV media buyer can make or break how your infomercial  is received by its audience. The media buyer assists with choosing the best networks and finding the greatest target audience for your product.  Results can be calculated and tracked and give you an accurate idea of how your product is being targeted. Producing a great DRTV campaign is dependent on a many factors:

• Conceptualization
• Dialog
• Research
• Outlining the story
• Character casting
• Shooting the video
• Refining the shoot

There once was a time when infomercials were limited to late night television. With marketing companies combining media to create mega-marketing campaigns, infomercials are now more widely used. Some channels devote hours of time regularly to infomercials. This created a competition between networks. Today, a large amount of stations air infomercials during late night and early morning hours as well as some who run them during day time and weekend hours.

Some stations have taken to running infomercials during hours where program ratings were slipping. Fox changed its programing from cartoons on Saturday mornings to air a block of infomercials.

Including your website on a DRTV commercial is incredibly important. The responses to DRTV in connection with web traffic is amazing. People watching TV can immediately respond to an ad by visiting the site and gathering more information on the product and more importantly, making a purchase. There are thousands of ways to market today and by cross promoting one point of sale to another you leave out many ways to miss your target.

Many direct response TV marketers also air their commercial on their website, so a consumer can watch it again if they missed part of it on TV. Websites are also a great place to further educate consumers about your DRTV product. Many consumers nowadays prefer to research a direct response TV product on the web before making a purchase decision, so it’s essential to make sure you develop a website that complements your DRTV commercial or infomercial.

DRTV advertisements are no longer just promoting the latest beauty product. Infomercials have expanded their worth to a number of industries who were once seemingly unavailable. For instance, lawyers have been using infomercials to promote their services. James Sokolove is a Massachusetts based lawyer who has been marketing through infomercials and is now using them to promote his expansion. He plans to turn his 14 office operation into a nation wide firm. He has been using infomercials for the past 20 years and feels confident that this plan for expansion through DRTV is going to succeed.

Barack Obama recognized the value in Infomercials when he purchased a $4 million infomercial to air in October of 2008. The infomercial features Obama traveling around the country giving speeches, meeting potential voters and spending time with his family. He used this time to speak directly to an audience without interruption or influence from any outsiders.
Infomercials are not just for knifes, beauty products or fitness equipment. It is an impartial form of media used to promote, inform, sell and educate. This is certainly is not the last time we will see a Presidential candidate purchase infomercial time.