The Direct to Brand process

The Science of Cha-Ching

Within traditional (i.e. inexperienced) ad circles, you might hear that direct response is fairly simplistic. “You want to try direct response?

Slap an 800 number and web site address on your TV spot, alert your customer support people, and there’s nothing else to it.” Frankly, nothing could be further from the truth. There’s far more to direct response than a phone number or e-mail address – if you want a successful direct-to-brand campaign. Furthermore, without an experienced direct-to-

brand practitioner, the “opportunities” for error are many times that of a traditional brand campaign.

In other words, the direct-to-brand message is a carefully cultivated hybrid. Just like the raising of prized orchids, crafting such messages is a unique skill. Brand and direct messaging are precisely grafted in an effective direct-to-brand campaign, not simply stapled together. Again, merely slapping on a phone number in the visual fine print just won’t do if you’re expecting results.

A successful, integrated direct response campaign requires a series of steps – well-managed, and carefully executed from start to finish; we call it The Science of Cha-Ching™.

Next week we begin to break down the elements that make up the process, so please check back…and give us your thoughts!

Why integrate Direct Response?

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Why integrate Direct Response?

Direct response provides you with the ability to generate exponential and/or immediate improvements in results (i.e. sales or leads). Direct response can generate such results in many ways.

When you think of direct response, you immediately think of the phone or web site. But direct response marketers also experience favorable results in driving retail sales. Interestingly, most people who see a DRTV spot don’t pick up the phone and order it if it’s available at a retail store. Industry statistics suggest that anywhere from ten to 15 units will be sold at a store for every one ordered over the phone. This small slice of consumer behavior is why Sears and Home Depot are now so successful with DRTV. 

If integrated by an experienced direct-to-brand firm, response can also build brand for your product or service with the important bonus of high measurability.

 Direct response incorporates real-time measurable advertising media – particularly DRTV – that enable you to first test your campaign without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a long-term commitment. A DRTV campaign, for example, begins with a relatively inexpensive one to two week low budget media test. Following the first week of testing, you can immediately make one of four choices:

If the revenues generated are not covering the cost of media placement on a one-to-one ratio, you can…

(1) re-tool the creative approach to strengthen the brand message,

(2) alter the media schedule to make more effective media buys, or

(3) simply terminate the direct response campaign.

On the other hand, if the campaign is generating at least a break-even return on investment…

(4) it’s time to begin incrementally increasing the media budget with the bottom line goal of managing a direct response campaign that pays for itself.

Building Your Brand and Your Bottom Line with Direct Response™

“Everything marketers do must support or build the brand. Realizing value from direct response marketing requires a holistic direct-to-brand strategy, unless you’re prepared for a new set of problems to emerge.” Jim Warren

Generating sales is still a goal today, but sophisticated brand managers are now using direct response to accomplish so much more than generating sales transactions. They employ a direct-to-brand approach to create or enhance a brand, enhance a company’s image, drive retail sales, and generate leads, just to name a few – all with the goal of developing long-term customer relationships, not merely single transactions.

Direct response built American Express, AOL, and Book of the Month Club, Dell Computer, GEICO Direct, Time Life Books and other well-known and respected brands. These early adopters of direct response technologies, and the brand managers that used them, have sought to differentiate themselves from their competition by building their business models around direct response.

The good news is that already well-established brands can be enhanced by direct-to-brand as well. Additionally, brand managers looking for an innovative way to gain incremental improvements in results with their existing brand will find direct response technologies an ideal fit. Sears, Home Depot, and Apple Computer are notable existing brands that now incorporate direct response in direct-to-brand marketing campaigns.

You see a particular wrench or tool set at Sears, and wonder what on earth it’s good for, and you don’t buy it. But after you see Bob Vila demonstrating its uses on TV, you’re likely to buy it the next time you go to Sears. Thanks to Bob’s advice to visit Sears today, you might

make a special trip just to get one.

Similarly, Home Depot now routinely makes special offers via DRTV, and invites the viewer to “Call, Click, or Visit.™”

Apple Computer has run DRTV spots designed to turn consumers away from the plethora of Windows-based PCs and towards a MacOS-based Apple product. The commercials feature people who have done so, and why they’re glad they did. If the viewer is then persuaded to at least consider a switch, he or she can call a number for a nearby outlet, or visit Apple’s website for more information. Sears, Home Depot, and Apple Computer are well-respected brands. Such Direct Response ads enhance that brand image while generating immediate and incremental improvements in results.

Direct To Brand

What is Direct-to-Brand™?
The use of direct response to its fullest potential in
transactional marketing while at the same time maximizing its use it to support and/or build a brand.

This is a simple definition of direct-to-brand
marketing. To fully understand the significance of
our disciplined approach, you must first understand the
impact of direct response. Direct response, in its many
formats, is a marketing “technology” designed to take
fullest advantage of direct to customer relationships for
the benefit of your brand and your bottom line. Our
version of direct response is an evolution in traditional
brand marketing by the addition of one significant factor
– a call-to-action; a motivation for the consumer to “act
now” in direct response to your brand message.

The history of direct response began in the earliest days
of broadcasting with, among others, industry pioneer
Alvin Eicoff. The inventor of d-Con rat poison
approached him to market d-Con. Retailers wouldn’t sell
it since it was an unproven product. So Eicoff ran direct
response radio ads. In those days, 800 numbers and
even credit cards did not exist. Listeners were prompted
to write down an address and send a check. D-Con
worked so well, people started asking for it at various
stores. The stores contacted Eicoff with apologies and
asked to market the product. He then came up with a
concept called “key outlet” sales, which strives to get the
consumer to a retail outlet. Eicoff put the product in
selected stores, and went back on the radio, “Send for it
by mail, or you can buy it today at XYZ Hardware.”

And the rest, as they say, is history. When people think
of direct response, they may think first of such notable
consumer products as the Pocket Fisherman or Ginsu
knives. And in the early days, that’s essentially all it was
– a presentation directly to the consumer in which the
merchant asked the consumer to send in a check to
purchase the product – in short, a direct response. The
entire goal was to generate a single sales transaction.
Later, AT&T created 800 numbers, Bank of America
invented the charge card, and the process became even
easier. Even so, the fundamentals of pure direct
response haven’t changed.

What is certain is that Billy’s untimely passing has been headlines, what isn’t certain is that it mean for his family the those that own the products and infomercials portraying the likeness of Billy Mays.

Never before has our industry had a spokesperson pass at the peak of their career. We know that Michael Jackson’s music sales are going through the roof, Farah memorabilia is at an all time high, but how will the loss of Billy Mays affect his infomercials and those behind them.

By this time next week, we will know whether sales have increased, decreased or stayed where they are. www.infomercial.com has spoken to brand experts how tell us that it might hurt the long-term value of a brand to continue running shows with Billy in them.

American consumers will once again tell us how they feel with their wallets. Colonel Sanders stayed on the bucket for years, Dave Thomas was immediately pulled from Wendy’s ads…there are many examples in other industries but this will be a first for the infomercial medium.

Billy Mays

Without a doubt Billy Mays helped the recent Infomercial industry rebound.

Our industry has experienced great success lately, due to the current economy in part; however you have to give the pitchmen credit…good or bad. I’ve seen several posts today stating that “now the guy from Shamwow has it all to himself”. What a terrible mistake to put Vince and Billy in the same category. Vince is everything that our industry has tried to move away from, while he is a very effective pitchperson, his reputation and credibility is horrible.

Billy on the other hand was just the opposite, he pitched products that he liked, because they worked and he used them. His image was solid and he would often give a guarantee that made you feel that he personally stood behind the product. Billy was a successful business man, a devoted (note how he tried to bring his son into The Pitchmen shows when the opportunity presented itself) family man and one heck of an Infomercial Industry Icon.

From the first time we saw Billy we knew he was here to stay. He projected a safe, strong and honest image. You felt he was more like the neighbor next store than the typical “Carney Barker” you see at the State Fair.

I recently met his wife and daughter found them to be exactly what Billy projected, a typical family. Billy worked as hard as anyone in the business and deserved ever hit he helped make.

Our thoughts go out to his wife and children as they deal with this terrible event.

Billy Mays For President

Billy Mays is everywhere!

Good for Billy and good for the industry because Billy is a great guy and projects a good image for our industry. Billy has become his own brand and we wonder what type of brand elasticity Billy Mays has.

As we all know when something is a fad or becomes trendy they tend to go the way of Arthur Fonzarelli in his now infamous Happy Day’s episode, you remember the one where he had to “jump the shark” to clad only in shorts and his trademark leather jacket.

Here is what got me thinking about this, yesterday I am at lunch at my favorite Pho place listening to the radio and I hear a commercial for a fast food place that is very popular here in Texas. The spot is a mock Billy Mays voice that says something to the affect of “why am I yelling…I don’t know it is just what I do!”

The commercial was funny, and unfortunately what made it funny was the parody and humorous writing all of which I might add, was at the expense of Billy Mays.

We like Billy, and hope to see and hear him on our TV and websites for years to come and to answer our own question, we do not think Billy has jumped the shark but we hope that he is thinking long-term about the Billy Brand. Billy Beer anyone?

In the early days of infomercials we saw a lot of people producting shows that were meant to look like a news show, or a consumer report on a specific product or service…only to find that it was really a paid program.  We then created the National Infomercial Marketing Association (now called The Electronic Retailing Association ERA) to help self police our industry.  Many of us we all to happy to bring new products to the market using this exciting new format, which worked just as well if not better when called out as a commercail.

Cut to the new internet retailing and blogging of Infomercial and other As Seen On TV products and we see some of the same type of explotation and mockery of conumser faith in our industry.  We have seen numerous Infomercial Product Review sites and blogs that are really just bad attempts to gain consumer trust and dollars.  This trend will not last so we say to you consumers looking to find out what consumers really think about a product or service…do you homework.  If the site or blog is selling ads for the same product it reviews, ask yourself if that makes a difference.

We believe that 90% of the products on television do exactly what they say they will do…and that the deal offered is worth every penny paid, but when it comes to the blogs and websites selling some of these products…it is like the television infomercial wild wild west of the late 1980’s and we all know the lasting damage a very few black hats caused for the industry.  The word ”Infomercial” and those in the business are still trying to clean up from that mess.

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Snicker all you want, but infomercials work

Despite the lingering image of infomercials as low budget productions, infomercials are increasingly being recognized as an excellent tool for selling products through multiple channels, and more importantly to major corporations, as a major driver of retail sales.

OxyClean®, BowFlex® and the Bose Wave Radio® are all hugely successful products that were launched using infomercials. But success is certainly not guaranteed (1 in 10 make money) and the financial risk is high. In general, your product may be a candidate for an infomercial if it:

Has mass appeal
Priced under $100
Can be easily demonstrated or explained
Not easily explained in print or with a few pictures
Has a markup of at least 4 to 1
Good potential for upsells

Infomercials come in various formats. But they aren’t suitable for every product or company. Well executed, they can form the backbone of your integrated marketing efforts and boost response to direct mail, online, print and Point of Purchase retail marketing efforts. A carefully crafted script, good pacing and a strong call to action are critical features of a successful infomercial.

Imagine having the opportunity to put one of your salespeople with a customer for a half hour. In that half hour, you explain product features, benefits, anticipate and answer questions and even share stories from real customers who already know and love your product and service, and better yet, your customer can relate to them. By the close, your customer is sold. They’re ready to buy right then and there. Now imagine that that one salesperson can talk to millions of people all at once. We can shorten your sales cycle, contact us to find out how.