Shooting a high quality commercial can be expensive. It doesn’t have to be Ford-commercial expensive; $1 million dollars a minute, but shooting a full-blown commercial for broadcast or cable television can easily run $10,000 or more.
That’s only part of the cost. The cost of actually running the spots is usually much larger than the cost of producing the commercial.
We recently had a client who contracted to produce a commercial spot only to place his plans on hold when he realized the full-cost of running the spot would bust his ad budget. Not an uncommon problem.
So, what to do if your ad budget won’t support a television blitz? You still need to generate traffic and build business but with limited resources. Also a common problem these days.
The answer to tight ad budgets that won’t support a television campaign is to use your corporate video as an online commercial.
The costs for producing a corporate video or presentation video is much less than the costs of a broadcast commercial. (A big part of the cost difference relates to broadcast rights. Stock images and talent costs used on television can be four or five times the going rate for the same elements used online.)
The corporate video can be just as persuasive and compelling as a television spot. In many respects the corporate video can be much more effective. You are not limited to 30- or 60-seconds. The presentation video can be interactive with built in contact and order forms. The corporate video can be integrated into your social marketing efforts, too.
Obviously the broadcast commercial has tremendous “reach” and “ratings” in advertising parlance. These are measurements for the size of the audience and the audience on television is still huge. This allows your ad to reach a large audience at one time. That’s the benefit of the television, but at a substantial cost per thousand. Cable television has a CPM of around $6.
It’s difficult to draw direct comparisons with ad rates for Internet advertising which is much more niche oriented, but CPM rates online can easily reach $6 and higher for certain markets, such as automotive and insurance.
However, users online can click on your add and go directly to your website, usually at a click-through-rate that is substantially less than the CPM. This gives the Internet a substantial advantage over cable television; albeit usually with a smaller online audience.
So, how do you overcome the lack of audience size to drive more traffic and business online? And do it on a budget?
There are two primary ways to build traffic online. First, focus on organic search traffic. These are the free (or organic) search results provided by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others. Through video search engine optimization and other basic techniques you can drive “free” traffic to your site where visitors can view your corporate video — your online commercial.
You can also use YouTube and your social media efforts as part of this push to drive traffic to your commercial. It does take some effort and coordination and there is no free lunch. There is a cost, but the cost of a coordinated online organic campaign can be as little as $2,000. And the benefits can continue to payoff over time as traffic builds.
The other avenue is paid search or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. These are the paid ads in the search results. Companies essentially bid on placement in an effort to get their PPC ads on the first page of the search results. User click the ads and visit your site. You only pay for each click, not the overall number of impressions (CPM).
Here, too, there is a cost. However, a smart PPC campaign can provide measurable results on a limited and controlled basis.
The point here is you have the ability to build traffic to your site so users can view your corporate video; your online commercial. The cost is a fraction of a television campaign, however, online advertising can be just as effective at driving new clients, customers, and patients to your business.
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