Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I have been producing an interview show in public access TV for the last four years. I am working to lease airtime and make the show a commercial venue. I want to start selling 15 and 30 second spot commercials for local businesses. I will also offer to produce their commercial, and place it on my web site, as well as run it on my show. The commercial can placed in small local markets, as well as nationally. The commercials are affordable for the local business owner, as well as national brands.

I am pricing a 30-second commercial at $35 each time it runs, running it 5 times a week and requiring a minimum 3-month subscription. I plan to air 15 commercials on each my show.

I am not confident on the pricing or what small businesses can afford this type of advertising.

What I bring to the advertiser is cable TV advertising that targets a specific area, and a specific demographic. I can advise a general contractor to advertise in an area where a percentage of the population own there homes, for example.

Please let me know what you think. What would you pay for effective cable TV advertising?

Sincerely yours,

Julian Vazquez

Producer

JennTess Productions

Hi Graig,

Thank you very much for your reply and I am sorry that it took so long to get back to you. I am still trying to get use to StartUp Nation.

Since my posting, I have talked to a couple of people involved with selling advertising on cable TV. I think I could entice more advertisers to try out my offer by requesting a subscriptiion of a minimum of 5-10 spots. That would allow them to try the type of advertising. I would also offer some advertising on the web site for a longer subscription.

For a 3-month subscription at $35 a spot, aired once during the show, Monday through Friday it would be $35 x 5 days x 12 weeks = $2100.

As for producing the commercial there are various levels of production available that ranges from a boiler plate commercial with your specifics edited in to one created from scratch with actors, special effects, original music and more. There are many ways to cut costs on producing commercials from using your own actors, leasing music from local bands and writing your own commercial. My main focus in on running the commercials, but we can assist with production, too.

Demographics are available in each area served by cable companies like Time Warner. One area might have as few as 24,00 subscribers to as many as 131,000 or more. The demographics in each area provide age range, income, percentage of homeowners, education/occupation, marital status and more. The demographics are applicable to the channel that serves that area. My show will air on prime time, so the assumption I have to make is that most viewers will see shows in that prime time. As my show matures, there are ways I can get a better idea of the demographics on my show.

I would recommend to a framing store to advertise in the area in which their store is located. I would recommend to a plumber, a lawyer, courier services multiple areas to air their commercial.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Julian

Hi Janie,

Thank you very much for your response. Your feedback, as well as Craig`s are valuable to me. I discussed the demographics in my reply to Craig. Demographics are available for each area served by cable companies operating in different cities, and is sometimes referred to as "narrowcasting" reaching a specific area for the physical location as well as for the demographics.

A new type of advertising to overcome the fast forwarding of commercials is called "branded entertainment." The idea (I think) is to integrate the products and the services with the entertainment. so if the viewer fast forwards they miss the show. In an interview show I could discuss a Panavision camera with a director of photography (DP). This would be of interest to other DPs, film students, directors, ADs and maybe film geeks (like me). I believe this might be the audience that a company like Panavision would want to reach.

I am working with the owner of a music school and store to start a TV series on local cable on music lessons and more. He has given me permission to contact his vendors to solicit sponsors. So, while we talk about tips on finger and picking exercises we do it on a sponsors guitar and mention the name and distributor throughout the demonstration.

I am negotiating with a sports/boxing company to do the same. It could be done with a variety of interests-marathons, racing, books, etc. I have also conducted interviews at business locations, thus exposing their business throughout the duration of the show. Cable TV advertising could be very powerful and affordable if both the producer/media placer (me) and the advertiser work together to a great ROI on the effort. For example, the advertiser could tell their whole world to watch their spots.

Also, there are some PR techniques where you can get celebrities onboard through supporting local or national non-profit organizations. Some of the celebs I associated with certain brands include The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), Angels manager, Mike Scioscia and (oops) Michael Vic-before his dog-fighting days.

I can also place commercials on almost any network you might see on cable TV, and save the advertiser money on package deals which would include advertising on my shows.

I hope this helps and thanks, again, Jani.

Best regards,

Julian

Hi Julian,

I saw your post and agree $35 sounds like quite an opportunity for a small business, to get such exposure.  But when you add it up like Craig did, it brings some questions to my mind.

What are the numbers of viewers for your program?  Who`s watching?  What age group?  Sometimes I wonder, with so many people fast forwarding through commercials, are enough, actually watching them?

Most small businesses only have so much, if any in the beginning to allocate to advertising and PR.  I think one of the biggest problems, is to figure out what the most effective way to use those dollars to benefit their business.

When we started our business, we never thought much about advertising thinking that it wouldn`t be effective for our type of business.  But lately I have thought much more about ads and PR.  Knowing where, how, or what to do has been the most difficult decision.   We have finally decided to make a commitment to a show on the Sports Channel that will promo our product.  Of course it will cost us more to do commercials if we choose.  But the channel and program,  I feel, are in our target market.

Still,.. wondering if we are making the right decision,, but at  some point you need to try something, and find out if it can benefit your business.  Now, after talking to a PR person this morning that has some great things to offer,  I wish we had all kinds of money to spend.  :)

So...my question to you is,  how do you convince small businesses that  doing commercials with you, will be  something that will greatly benefit their business? That this is where they should spend the money that they could allocate for ads and PR? Because what you`re offering is very affordable, if it really does bring them a lot more business.

Janie

Julian : My software will target freelancers and small consulting firms billing for their time, I will be selling online via a web site, do you have a channel for this type of offering ?

From what I`ve heard many people in the US now use their TIVO for not record advertising, Have you seen an impact on your business due to the TIVO ?

Hi Tarek,

When you ask if I have a channel, do you mean for broadcasting the TV show or a channel on my web site?

TIVO has affected a lot of advertisers. To counter this many advertisers are going to branded entertainment or are making the ads so interesting that people would be out of the know for not watching them.

Best regards,

Julian

Julian I was refering to TV advertising since your mention Cable TV in your initial post

The channel varies by area served. In North Orange County  the show appears on channels 95, 97 and 98. Channels available in areas in Orange County and Los Angeles County include channels 6, 24, 16 and more. This is one of the characterisitics of narrow-casting as opposed to broadcasting. Networks like ABC, NBC, KCAL hit a much larger area some of which may not be of interest to some advertisers.

The demographics are available for each of these channels.

Best regards,

Julian