Direct Response TV Ads are usually associated with the shouting, British pitchman who you couldn’t ignore in a nuclear blast. But there’s also the soft spoken cosmetic ad in which women share their experience of nearly being lifted up to heavenly embrace with Favio. Both are Direct Response TV spots. But they are radically different. The rules that apply to one don’t apply to the other. Or do they?
Here’s 6 tips to make a DRTV ad that’s a good fit for your customer.
1) Start with your customer and what they need. This will determine the spin of the infomercial. If your consumer is looking for ways to lose weight, you might add a line “and lose weight effortlessly” to a bicycle commercial.
2) Understand what presenter they’ll respond to. Consumer analysis will tell you keywords to use that your consumer is interested in. Women might buy a car wax (for their husband to use) if it’s “environmentally friendly”.
Even if the product isn’t the best on the market, being “environmentally friendly” positions it as the responsible wax to buy.
3) Start the pricing high and work your way down. Your initial price establishes the value. You still have to make it believable. But once the price is set you can either add free incentives to it or you can double the quantity (two for the price of one) IF they order now.4) Match their emotional tone level. Most advertisers miss this one. They assume shouting works on everybody. Sometimes the soft approach is what a particular consumer wants. The audio can still be loud but the announcer isn’t shouting.
5) It’s a mind game. We learned this from a famous infomercial spokesperson. People are mostly frustrated in their lives. They’re bored! They want something to do they can get a win doing. So, he uses the word “easy” in nearly every sentence. And he shows them how much fun they could have by doing this EASY procedure to make something. They don’t even care about what that something is. What they’re buying is the ability to make something. They want a win.
6) Use a phrase that will trigger an irrational buying impulse. You don’t want them to think about your offer. You want to command them to buy. You want to override all the reasons they can come up with to “do nothing”. Knowing that trigger phrase is the result of consumer analysis and optimized market research applied by a company with direct response TV experience. I use the analogy of two fly fishermen. One knows what trout fly the trout are biting and one is the new guy. The trout are hungry but the guy who knows those trout the best will catch them.