Good Business News

Television Production In The Inland Emire Goes ‘LIVE’ With Ideas

By admin on October 5th, 2011

The new economy has taken businesses down right with it and only the strong, smart and innovative have survived. Thankfully your experience and resolve has enabled you to stay in business. In this new economy, many of the same questions still remain. How do you find new customers? How do you repeatedly get your message to your current customers?

One powerful marketing tool that is often overlooked is video. With the advent of powerful search engines like YouTube and Google, video marketing has become the best way to connect with potential and current customers.

10 years ago when I was Television Production Manager for a local cable company I oversaw a department that generated over $30,000 per month in revenue and it was all from small businesses. These small businesses were making commercials and airing them on local cable channels. At that time commercials or ‘spots’ could be bought for as little as $7 per spot. Albeit those inexpensive spots were usually ROS (Run of Schedule) which meant that they could air anytime during the day or night. You had no control. If you wanted your spot to run during prime time or some other set time, you had to pay a premium. Even then I always felt that Television was one of better values in advertising. It put pictures and words of your business right in front of consumers. I worked with businesses who reaped huge rewards from their cable advertising.

One of the ideas I had at the time was the ‘live’ video production from a local retailer. A ‘live’ remote was nothing new. Radio always promoted their ‘live’ remotes and charged a bankroll. A live remote usually cost anywhere from $5000 to $7000 depending on the surrounding ‘festivities’ you wanted to add. I thought to myself “What a Waste of Money!” Yes, you did have this great event at your place of business but when it was over…that was it…it was over! And so was the excitement and the energy of your $5000 investment. Hopefully someone driving with their radio on would remember your event and if they needed your service or product, they might remember you.

Small businesses usually don’t have $5000 to $7000 to spend on a single advertising event. In fact, small businesses usually tried to get by with spending as little as they could for advertising. I decided to develop a television marketing and advertising campaign for the small businesses in our Inland Empire area.

My Advertising Sales Production Department served the Inland Empire including the cities of Riverside, Corona, San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga and Norco. We had a pretty big reach through our cable system and there were many destination type businesses in all parts of the Inland Empire. Specialty restaurants, Accountants, RV Dealers, Attorneys, Wheel and Tire Specialists, Pool Builders, Fence Builders, Commercial Plumbers…all of whom are small businesses by definition and had to advertise.

We created a half-hour television Showcase that featured 10 of these local businesses per show. The show aired three times per week and was promoted with 1000 thirty second commercials per month across all of our cable channels. Each businesses was on the air for 2 1/2 minutes per half our. In total each business was on the air for a solid half-hour per month. All for only $300 per month. It was the perfect introduction to television advertising for businesses. The idea being that once they’ve experienced the successes they would be open to spending more per month for us. It worked like a charm!

We took great care in producing the 2 1/2 minute long video segments for our Inland Empire television advertising clients. After careful research about their business and some competitors analysis, we took our television production crew to our client’s location and produced a video segment of their business. The video marketing segment would include interviews with key personnel and testimonials from their clients. We also shot background footage to accompany the interviews and testimonials. It was the perfect way to show their product or service and hear from satisfied customers. It’s an age old formula I borrowed from my days as an Infomercial producer but that’s a story for another day.

We carefully grouped ten of the 2 1/2 minute segments into half hour ‘live’ shows. The segments were produced in somewhat of a news style format so that it looked ‘live’ as we went from one Inland Empire business to another. Each show aired on local cable 3 times per week and our television advertising clients loved it.

Now I really took the long way around the block to get to the point that our ‘live’ remotes had more life than the radio ‘live’ remote.
Ours was recorded and could be played over and over again. As long as we produced an entertaining and informative video segment for our client, viewers would tune in over and over again to watch the show. After 3 months, we would record a new video segment for them.

Long video life is the point I wanted to get to. Today with the internet EVERY small business has the opportunity to take advantage of this very same ideas that proved to be successful over 10 years ago. Record it once and let it play! Over and over again!

The internet offers everyone, every business, every church every cause their very own portal to the world and as a small businesses you MUST take advantage of this powerful tool.

When you create your video you can upload it to any number of video hosting sites such as Youtube, Viddler, Vimeo, Dailymotion…the list goes on and on. And of course remember to enter your keywords. My keywords when I upload videos are usually something like Television Production Inland Empire Advertising, Branding, Rancho Cucamonga, Riverside, Ontario, Corona, Commercials, Voice, Marketing, Victorville And of course your videos should be of good quality all while selling your business. A good campaign will consist of mix of videos that will include hard sell, soft sell and entertainment. A good example of entertainment would be an interview with a key employee at your business or with you. This Entertainment has purpose. It helps your audience get to know the people behind the business. Remember, we always like to do business with people we know. And the more they know about you…well that’s Branding and it’s most beneficial return you can get with every effort of advertising.

Gain important things to know about – please make sure to study the web site. The times have come when proper info is truly within your reach, use this opportunity.