An Intro to Direct Response TV Advertising (And Yes, You Can Afford It)
Guest: Mic Feld, the founder and CEO of Feld Direct, which is a branded direct response TV advertising agency and production company located in San Francisco. Mic is also a client of CEO Coaching International.
Overview: Many small to mid-sized business owners are surprised to discover that TV advertising is much more cost-effective than they think. Sure, a Super Bowl ad costs millions for a 60-second spot. But you can be much more surgical in finding the right networks, the right day part, the right message, and fine tune your results based on the analytics to generate BIG growth on a very reasonable budget.
On today’s show, Mic Feld explains how direct response TV advertising works and how you can use an insider’s knowledge to get great results regardless of your budget.
Mic Feld on the benefits of DRTV advertising:
“I believe there is still a stigma attached to direct response television because of those old Ginsu knife days. In fact it’s a very sophisticated tool that is incredibly cost-effective. Because of the nature of selling something direct you can measure and track everything so you know the return on your ad spend. And it just sets up a very interesting marketplace dynamic for the advertiser who is spending money. They get a very close report card on how did the advertising perform? That’s something in typical brand advertising you don’t get.”
Mic Feld on the most effective structure for DRTV ads:
“If I were a company that had all the money in the world, my first form of advertising would be to send a salesman to every prospect’s home and sit at the kitchen table with the person and sell my product. Obviously we can’t do that, but what could you take from the salesman’s methodology and apply in a very cost-effective way to television advertising? And over the years we’ve come to a pretty common-sense structure: Solution. Proposition. Proof points. Offer. Call to action. Every one of our commercials is based on that same structure. So what you’re asking someone to do in direct response is to watch a 30 or 60-second commercial, solve a problem that they have, prove that it’s a good thing to do, and encourage the action of buying or calling or getting online to buy the product right after they see the commercial. That’s radically different than remembering it next week at the store. So it isn’t an awareness play as much as it is a logic play. And if you want to really sell something that is a considered purchase, you need to be there consistently.”
Mic Feld on ignoring the “competition”:
“The competition isn’t out there. The competition is you. And if you can do everything you can to be the best you can be — know your client’s business, know your client’s customer, understand every element, understand strategy analytics — if you really work hard and understand all of that, it doesn’t matter who your competition is. It’s irrelevant.”
About CEO Coaching International
CEO Coaching International works with CEOs and their leadership teams to achieve extraordinary results quarter after quarter, year after year. Known globally for its success in coaching growth-focused entrepreneurs to meaningful exits, CEO Coaching International has coached more than 1,000 CEOs and entrepreneurs in more than 60 countries and 45 industries. The coaches at CEO Coaching International are former CEOs, presidents, or executives who have made BIG happen. The firm’s coaches have led double-digit sales and profit growth in businesses ranging in size from startups to over $10 billion, and many are founders that have led their companies through successful eight, nine, and ten-figure exits. Companies working with CEO Coaching International for two years or more have experienced an average revenue CAGR of 31% (2.6X the U.S. average) and an average EBITDA CAGR of 52.3% (more than 5X the U.S. average).
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