Direct response television (DRTV) is a valuable marketing strategy to get your product or service directly in front of your ideal audience to produce an immediate response. DRTV is any television advertisement that includes a call to action (CTA), consisting of an offer that entices the consumer to respond with immediate action, such as buying your product or booking your service. It is highly trackable, measurable, and effective, especially when it’s done the right way by a top DRTV marketing agency.
It’s important to partner with the right agency who knows how to make your product or service look its most appealing, get the best message across and scale your results. We’ve compiled a few tips on things to look for when researching and vetting your DRTV agency.
1. Make sure they specialize in DRTV
There is a lot that goes into DRTV marketing, which is why you want to make sure you partner with an agency that has significant experience in the field. Most top marketing agencies can make your product or service look appealing to your audience, but they may not understand how to make the right direct-response offer to the right target audience, as well as track, measure, and optimize the campaign after it’s launched.
2. Research their experience and results
Has the agency you’re vetting worked with brands like yours before? Was their direct response marketing successful? Even if the agency has not worked with your niche product before, find out what kind of experience they do have and ask for specifics on how they managed the campaigns from start to finish. Find out how much of the creative is the agency willing or able to take on, and if they will assist in optimizing the campaign to ensure success.
3. Ask for examples of their work
It’s important that the direct response TV agency you are interested in working with can produce videos that will represent your brand accurately and resonate with your target audience. Ask for as many examples as they’re willing to provide. Review all their work and make sure you like the look, feel, and messaging they get across. Do these other advertisements make you want to buy the product or take advantage of their limited offer?
4. Do they understand your product and the right messaging
Make sure the agency has taken the time to become familiar with your brand, product or service. Do they understand your messaging and your ideal customer? Do they take the time to ask questions and learn about the details of your product? The right agency will believe in your product/service and help you find the right message and audience if you need direction. The agency shouldn’t be too eager to say yes to everything, instead they should be providing insightful ideas and information into their strategy and creative process.
5. What offer do you want to make
A top DRTV marketing agency will be able to assist you in creating the right offer for your campaign. They know what offers produce the highest immediate response to take action, and they will understand how to integrate this type of offer to your product or service. Most of these offers will be considered as a “limited-time” deal and they must “take action now” or miss out. The offer should be so enticing that the consumer watching the advertisement makes a purchase decision in that moment. Your agency should be able to help you decide on an offer that is enticing enough to produce results, while also ensuring it fits within your needed profit margins.
6. Consider your budget
Not all short-form infomercials cost the same. The length of the video alone does not determine the pricing of the video. Instead, it’s all the possible production elements that go into the production of the video. The process of creating a top-quality marketing video for your business goes into three categories: pre-production, production, and post-production. Have a budget in mind, pitch your video ideas to the agency and let the agency send you a proposal. If your ideas are going to cost over your budget, you should be able to work with the agency to determine what production elements can be done within your budget. You will then be able to decide if it's worth raising your budget to accomplish some of the creative elements you want or to cut certain pieces out to make the production fit within the budget.
For more information on the potential costs of your DRTV production, visit How Much Does an Infomercial Cost?
Picking the right direct response TV agency can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be when you come prepared. We’ve put a list together of the Top 9 Questions To Ask when vetting the right producer for your campaign. There are a lot of great video production companies out there to choose from, many of which provide similar quality work with varying prices. We believe beyond the quality of our production, there is great value in the additional advantages we offer. For information about how Harvest Growth can help grow your business through DRTV marketing, contact us today to set up your FREE strategy call.