(Press Release – see http://tinyurl.com/ox59knr)

The DRTV Centre, the leading UK direct response TV ad agency, discloses the 25 most common mistakes made by new direct response television advertisers, and offers advice on how to avoid them.

Direct Response TV Advertising (DRTV) is highly attractive to growing numbers of TV advertisers because it can produce new business almost instantly. 

David Pearson of The DRTV Centre explains: “Because so many clients have heard that DRTV can produce new business virtually immediately, some think that it’s easy. Sadly they are wrong. And clients who think that they can follow the same creative and media strategies for DRTV as for their awareness building advertising are doomed to failure”

25 key blunders:

Screw up by confusing response objectives with brand awareness/image building objectives.

Screw up by failing to define precise CPR (cost/reply) and CPO (cost/order) objectives. 

Screw up by not defining the target audience – demographics and psychographics. 

Screw up by not appointing a specialist DRTV agency. Ordinary advertising agencies may claim to be able to handle the campaign but they are highly unlikely to possess the expertise.

Screw up by relying on conventional brand research techniques to make DRTV decisions. A focus group environment is completely different from grabbing viewers’ attention “there and then” and persuading them to buy instantly.

Screw up by not emphasising the most persuasive product benefits. 

Screw up by not showing a problem/solution scenario.

Screw up by committing too high a budget to a client’s first DRTV campaign. Be cautious, learn from modest tests.

Screw up by writing the DRTV script. Use a specialist agency.

Screw up by buying the TV airtime direct rather than using specialist DRTV media experts.

Screw up by ignoring the power of music. 

Screw up by using a family member or friend as presenter to save money. 

Screw up by not paying extra attention to converting leads, as opposed to simply creating them. 

Screw up media value by buying peak time. DRTV is most cost-effective during daytime.

Screw up by making the DRTV script complicated.

Screw up by not experimenting with alternative TV stations, different TV programmes, different script lengths, days of week and times of day. 

Screw up by featuring a forgettable phone phone number just because it’s cheap. 

Screw up by ignoring upselling.

Screw up by spending too rigidly to the media budget. If the campaign is a winner, keep backing it. And if the campaign is failing, cut losses fast. 

Screw up by failing to have a back-end revenue programme.

Screw up by not analysing DRTV response results in fine detail. 

Screw up by not updating your website.

Screw up by sticking rigidly to long-established company rules. DRTV winners are entrepreneurs.

Screw up by ignoring what successful competitors are doing. 

Screw up by resting on your laurels when the campaign is successful. Never assume that the campaign cannot be improved. 

Advice about DRTV from DM Magazine: “The more it strays from its custom-built purpose of lead generation, the less effective it becomes; there is nothing subtle about direct TV. It is made to drive behaviour at that instant”