My TV Ad

[codegreen]

No, but I don't mind telling you why I didn't until now.

a) You sell your expertise. Do you give away any of your three tutorials for free to members of this forum? Like the social media one?

Lisa provides tons of helpful information at no cost -- or rather, she provides it here with the expectation that we provide info that's useful in return. That's what most of us do here. In fact, I took part in a free webinar Lisa did on LinkedIn strategy not that long ago.

b) You weren't looking for critique, you were looking for accolades. The whole point of the ad, as I viewed it, was to stroke your ego and did a whole lot of talking about you...which isn't the point of ads.

I'd be interested to learn more about how you came to this conclusion. If I don't have to pay you for that bit of info, of course.

c) I'm way, way too busy to stroke egos. If you were serious, a different response would have been something to the effect of "what are you offering?" or "what is your expertise" or something questioning the value of the advice.

The thing is, I don't need to ask these things about most of the regulars here. If I'm looking to hire someone for SEO, social media work, Windows server assistance, etc, I already know who the go-to people are on TN. I know who these people are because they share their knowledge regularly here on the forums.

Also, for the record, you didn't offer any advice.

d) If you have money to burn to stroke your ego, you have a few bucks to show you're serious. Would I have taken them? No. I've given a few other people advice from what I've learned in PMs. My mission is to help others. But you can't help others if they don't want to be helped. I knew the answer and your silly responses supported my intuition.

I think your spidey-senses may need a tune up. Lisa is one of the most helpful people here, and is also quick to listen and learn from her colleagues. I don't know where your intuition came from, but it isn't supported by the facts.

e) I have absolutely no patience for nonsense. What I bring has value. If you don't want it, that's fine, there's always someone else who does.

And the evidence of this value is... ?

So did I miss the point of TN like I see someone commented in cowardly fashion in my rep? You can decide.

I'm not sure how you figure giving rep is cowardly. However, yes, I'd say you missed the point, at least on this thread. You chimed in on a critique request thread, said it was a bad ad, refused to provide even the most basic information as to why, and suggested that you should be paid before you would offer any kind of help or useful information. Then, you came back and badmouthed Lisa (her personally, not her ad) for no reason. Frankly, you come off sounding like a real jerk.

 

[thefinale]

Ok, this is my last post in this forum so I'm going to make it count. I can't post under my old account because I changed the password and email and forgot to save it.

Lisa, this is for you. If others get value, that's fine too.

Think about all the best commercials you've ever seen. How many can you actually remember? How many of them got you talking about them? How many inspired a reaction within you, either good or bad? And how many of them actually got you to act.

The reality is very, very few.

Take this thread. A few people patted you on the back which you promptly ate up, same with the fellows in the restaurant in your town. "It was good" or "I saw you on TV". It made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Here's the reality:

IT STROKED YOUR EGO.

The whole point of advertising is to do one thing. Get action by inspiring a reaction. It's not for people to butter you up in the forum, or to blow sunshine up your arse in a restaurant. If that's why you're doing it, save your money. Most people in advertising make one fatal mistake, the same mistake you did. They make it all about themselves, their products, their features. $50 tip: In an age of information saturation CONSUMERS TUNE OUT.

Several pages back I made a very simple statement. Pay me and I'll tell you why it was terrible. And guess what? I got more reaction, more people talking and inspired more emotion than your commercial, your post or ANYTHING you said after that. By page 4, not only wasn't anyone talking about your commercial, the one person who did couldn't even remember if you put your phone number in it. A simple follow up post generated even MORE buzz...during someone else's message. I'll bet that long after I'm gone people will remember that long before your commercial or even anything else you said.

THAT'S THE ESSENCE OF MARKETING.

I could, in theory, end the post right here.

My comment inspired reaction because it spoke to people on a level much deeper than they even realize. Some posters even quoted it line by line and wrote out these extensive diatribes that I didn't even bother reading. It must've hurt their brains to write out that much drivel. And the reality is, none of them have a clue the real answer as to WHY.

However, Lisa, that's your goal. It's not to say I do this and I do this and me me me and blah blah blah and "look at me". It's to connect with your audience and command their attention. It's to inspire (re)action. It doesn't even matter the polarity of the reaction. It matters that you get lots of them. To do that you must get inside the head of your audience and you must be genuine. What do you want as a consumer? Answer that question and you're on your way. Naturally there's a lot more to it, but one can only convey so much in one post.

Now here's something else. It also matters how many responses you get. The reality is that I can put "I am the biggest jerk on the planet" in my ads and someone is going to respond. Someone will call me. But that doesn't pay the bills or make the measure of a successful campaign. The occasional customer walking in and saying "I saw you on TV" isn't a success story when you can take that same spot and have hundreds of people say "I saw your ad on tv and here I am".

I'm not going to give you all the answers. I'm only going to point you in the right direction. I hope I made my point, that you can read between the lines and I wish you every success.

 

[crabig]

I know this is an old thread, but I'm just seeing it today. One way I've seen to get by the DVR skipping, is to use billboard ads on TV. These are the quickie ads that appear on the TV RIGHT before the show comes back on. It's a still shot, just your logo and phone number, with a quick voice over. The whole thing lasts about 8-10 seconds. The best part? They're cheap, especially if you're already running commercials with the local station. For the NBC affiliate here, a billboard spot is $10. The high end is the CBS affiliate, they charge $25.

The point is, most people, even when DVR skipping, will see these, and remember them.

 

[Gary Rockliff]

I loved the add lisa and the fact that your willing to have a go.

My concern is that advertising on free-to-air television is fast becoming old school and advertisers are moving very rapidly over to the Internet, ie Youtube channels, Podcasting etc. I know myself I very rarely watch traditional television, maybe the odd doco which I normally tape anyway, but I am seeing more and more ads that would normally be seen on free-to-air television on the Internet.

Anyway I hope it gets more jobs for you. Good Luck!

 

[Rocco]

Since someone else necro'd the post, Lisa, you still running TV ads, or did that also get cut? When you did run them (if you stopped), what did you think of the response you get or got off them? Something you want to look at in the future, or never again, like my radio ads?

 

[callthatgirl]

At that time I did the ad, it would have been good if I projected that in 3-6 months it would pay off, but I didn't have the extra $1000 a month at the time, so I let it die, just paid for a month. I did get calls in later though and some new clients, nothing spectacular...but the key to TV is consistency I do believe.

I'm not marketing to home/res anymore, nor I am marketing in the town I live in so I can't really say that I would consider it, probably not.