Definition: A program-length TV commercial (also done sometimes on radio)
that's very similar in appearance to a news program, talk show or
other non-advertising format that provides consumers with in-depth
information on a product or service
You could probably never afford to run a 30-minute commercial
for your business. But on public access cable television, you can
almost certainly put on a 30-minute infomercial promoting yourself
and your business. For instance, the owner of an antique shop could
host a weekly show on finding, restoring and pricing antiques. Or a
car repair specialist could host a weekly car care show. The
possibilities are endless.
There's a lot to be said for being able to give a live
demonstration of your product so that consumers can actually see
how it works--how easy or difficult it is, how large or small, how
sharp or dull, or how effective. This is a form of advertising you
don't want to attempt yourself. Hire a professional to guide you
through this multi-faceted process. Even television stations aren't
set up to handle the making of an infomercial from beginning to
end. They don't have the capability to provide the set design,
scripts, show format, celebrity acquisition and testimonials, just
to name a few of the elements that go into the process. They can
shoot the footage in the beginning and edit the whole thing
together at the end, but everything in-between is out of their
realm.
Most advertising agencies can help you with the production of
your infomercial. They can be responsible for such pre-production
details as budgeting, scouting locations, promotion and public
relations, research, any construction needed, and much more. One
solution is to hire an advertising agency to create the "pieces,"
such as the testimonials, the set designs, the scripts and the
talent, and then bring everything to the TV station to put it all
together. Your television sales reps may also be able to recommend
companies, such as Hawthorne Direct or Producers
Direct in your vicinity that can handle your project from start
to finish. To find a company in your area, run a Google search for
"DRTV production companies."
Your infomercial will seldom be watched by anyone from beginning
to end, so you must break up the half-hour show into separate,
interesting segments with a "closer" or "call to action" at the end
of each segment. While your toll-free phone number, website URL
and/or P.O. box address should stay on the screen at all times, a
"closing" segment should take place every ten minutes or so to
encourage people to buy immediately or to offer a list of store
locations where the product can be found. Then move right on to a
new segment.
Keep your messages moving. For instance, a car dealership may
showcase its used cars in one segment, then move on to its service
department, then present its new cars, then show testimonials. The
idea is to keep the audiences interested without boring them to
death and to keep the half-hour fluid.
Businesses with products that don't change much over time can
more easily recover the cost of making an infomercial because they
can produce just one and use it for years. But the infomercials for
some businesses have a much shorter shelf-life because the footage
is constantly becoming outdated (the car dealership, for example).
Owners of these type of businesses need to continually bear the
cost of revising or creating entirely new productions year after
year.
Infomercials take time to produce. For instance, if you want to
include testimonials, you have to find the right people and,
depending on the product, you may even have to travel to shoot
footage of them. Multiply your travel costs by the number of
testimonials you want to use in your infomercial, and you can see
that just that portion can take a week or more. When all is said
and done, you can probably add another week or more for selecting
your music, editing the footage, and getting the copies (dubs) made
for whatever stations you'll be running it on.
When it comes to televising your infomercials, you'll spend
anywhere from $100 to $3,000 per spot, on average, to buy actual
air time. Since most of these ads run overnight and on the
weekends, the per-spot cost isn't quite as high as it would be
during any other time of the day or evening. It all ads up--it's
not territory for the faint of heart or the small of budget to
explore. And because you won't know if your infomercial is a good
one--meaning one that works--until it actually airs, it only makes
sense that you start with professionals who know the ins and outs
of creating infomercials to give yourself the best chance of
success. And for this reason, you'll want to test your long
commercial in a small market and not cast a wide net until you know
if it's working for you!
Although the industry's reputation is improving, there are still
infomercials that may make this form of advertising difficult to be
associated with. Psychic readers, get-rich-quick schemes, and all
those too-good-to-be-true infomercials where they say you can lose
weight without any effort make it hard for others to be taken
seriously. So be sure that if you use infomercials, you follow
through with your fulfillment and return policies--and that your
product or service lives up to what you promise your audience.