DRTV MEDIA BUYER

Tracking the media ratio and return on investment (ROI) of a DRTV or radio campaign has always been a key aspect of the media buying process. Through all stages of a campaign, from initial focus group testing to network testing, tweaking and rollout, direct response marketers know the value of good data, analysis and careful media buying. The best marketers are those who literally “measure twice and cut once,” working closely with their media buying partner to evaluate each market and each test before signing off on a campaign.

With this kind of rigor, it is often surprising how few direct response companies analyze all of their marketing channels for overall performance. Very few execute integrated, multi-channel campaigns where the media plan includes TV, radio, online, on-demand, print and other channels in one comprehensive package.

Online and on-demand TV are often the poorest planned and least understood of the above channels, especially by traditional marketers who view new media as more of a sideshow. With the dramatic rise of Internet advertising and the disruptive promise of video-on-demand (VOD) and digital video recorders (DVRs), this mindset will have to change.

What is needed is a new approach to direct response media buying and planning that not only treats online and on-demand TV advertising as serious channels, but also provides for integrated, multi-channel planning and reporting. This solution would include media ratio and cost per action (CPA) calculations at the media category level as well as an overall performance calculation.

It’s important to work with a media buying agency that has the capability to do research that helps identify the best media vehicles to efficiently reach the target audience. There is a wide range of media research tools that can be utilized by a media buying agency, in order to develop a targeted media plan.

Experienced media buying firms often review a combination of research tools, such as competitive media schedules, Nielsen ratings and data that identifies the networks watched most by people in the target audience, who have purchased a similar product or service.

Direct response television (DRTV) media buying firms also look at their database of results from campaigns for other products in the same category. Some DRTV media buying firms utilize a combination of traditional advertising metrics, such as ratings and impressions and combine that information with DRTV measurements to create a hybrid DRTV campaign. DRTV media buying firms for direct marketers looking to both sell product and drive retail sales often develop these types of DRTV campaigns.

I started my career in marketing working in brand management on the Heinz Ketchup business. Working on a brand that was a household name and that had over a 50% market share provided me with an appreciation of the value of a strong brand. In the direct response media buying industry, many marketers overlook the power of branding and the value it can create for your company.

In the direct response TV industry, the marketers that understand the power of branding seem to be the ones that are most successful and have the longest running campaigns. Brands such as Bowflex and Proactiv come to mind when I think of successful direct response brands. Having a well-known brand can dramatically increase the value of your company. Just look at Orange Glo. I’m certain the reason the Church & Dwight was willing to pay $325 million to buy Orange Glo was because of the company’s profitability and the value of the OxiClean brand.
 
Direct response marketing provides marketers with the opportunity to both sell and brand their products simultaneously. If you can establish your brand as the leader in the drtv marketplace, it can help differentiate your product from the competition and it makes it harder for competitors to gain market share. For example, my company works with the leading ladder product. In only a few years, that product went from nothing to the leading brand in its category and knock-off products haven’t been able to gain traction. This was accomplished through effective media buying, branding and marketing of the product.

A significant event in the history of direct response advertising transpired in late October. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer with a $580 million ad budget, selected a direct response media buying agency to help it overcome slowing sales growth. People in our industry would classify the winning agency, Draft FCB, as a branded direct response agency, but nevertheless, it is a direct marketing agency. It beat out some of the largest traditional ad agencies in the world to secure the coveted Wal-Mart account, according to a October 26 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article. Although other big marketers like Microsoft and P&G have used direct response advertising for certain brands, I can’t recall a company the size of Wal-Mart selecting a direct marketing agency as its lead agency.
 
Major marketers have seen the type of accountability and customization that Internet advertising can provide, and now they are looking to more accurately measure their return from their offline advertising. Savvy media buying executives are finally realizing direct response advertising can provide them with a way to measure the ROI from their advertising expenditures.
 
With the tenure of CMOs averaging about two years, media buyers are under the gun to deliver results. Wal-Mart recently recruited senior marketing experts from top consumer products companies, such as PepsiCo, Target and DaimlerChrysler, to help overhaul its marketing efforts. Based on their selection of a direct marketing agency for Wal-Mart, these marketers clearly understand the power of direct response advertising.

Neuromarketing can help marketers and media buyers determine the right message and the right design before a campaign even goes out. “What kind of information can you provide that will make an emotional connection with consumers and lead them to read the rest of your information?” asks Rao. “Should it be words? Pictures? In color or black and white? In the top left corner or the bottom right? What about font size?”
 
One company that uses neuromarketing to sharpen its marketing message is Vistage International, which provides networking and educational opportunities to CEOs. And one of the areas in which neuromarketing has made the biggest difference for Vistage is direct mail.
 
Laura DiPietro, Vistage chief marketing officer, says that although direct mail has always been a key element of her company’s strategy, the organization’s direct-mail pieces were “blah” before Vistage began working with SalesBrain, a marketing company that specializes in neuromarketing.
 
Vistage’s old direct pieces were very conservative, with visuals of white men in their fifties, says DiPietro. She and her associates learned from SalesBrain that the look didn’t elicit an emotional response in prospects, and therefore wasn’t memorable, nor did it motivate consumers to take action.
 
Vistage began the makeover in May, and the company’s direct mail pieces and Web site now feature elements that resonate far greater with their target customers. “We’ve really tried to modernize our direct-marketing tools by including something based on neuromarketing. Our new pieces incorporate a more active sense,” says DiPietro. “The photos we use now do not just focus on people but are more high-concept pictures. The colors are new and fresh and the direct pieces always have a question and then a payoff line.”

Over the past holiday season online ads were everywhere, promoting everything from low-priced flat screen TVs to digital cameras. Many of these advertisers are still analyzing the ROI delivered by these campaigns. One of the areas advertisers are starting to monitor more closely is just how much of their pay-per-click (PPC) or search-marketing budgets were lost to click fraud. Retailers spent more money than ever before on online advertising, including media buying into the popular search marketing–or PPC advertising–medium. PPC advertising is one of the fastest growing segments of the online advertising market. It works by allowing the advertiser to buy the rights, for a period of time, to search terms or words that a consumer might type into a search engine. When a consumer uses that word or term in a search, the advertiser’s ads are displayed in the context of the search results.

The market for search or PPC advertising has grown considerably (to $4.8 billion in 2006), representing more than 42 percent of the total online ad spending. But as advertisers continue to embrace this popular medium, they are doing so more carefully because of the growing problem of click fraud.

Click fraud occurs when someone clicks on an ad without any intention to purchase or register. The person or “bot” (a computer-generated user) has no intention of taking the action the advertiser is paying to get. The perpetrator could be a company trying to eat up its competitor’s media buying or advertising budget, a dissatisfied consumer or a ring of people working together to make money off the advertising campaign.

electronic retailer magazine

View Branding as an Ongoing Business Strategy
 
Branding is not something you do for a few days and then forget about. Branding must be a constant in your company’s business strategy. Brand loyalty and brand recognition can decline unless you revitalize your brand on an ongoing basis. Many businesses reinvent or rebrand themselves every few years to achieve a higher level of consumer recognition or because of problems or negative stigma associated with their current brand. Regardless of your product or brand, or how long you’ve successfully had it, to remain competitive, you must adapt your brand based on changing trends in the marketplace.
 
Branding for Success
 
Remember that branding takes time. That’s why you must integrate all these strategies over the long-term to build a brand. No matter when you start your branding efforts, branding your business is an important part of any successful marketing strategy. You want your customers to think of high value and quality when they think of your product or service. By branding your business, you make that happen. A strong brand also makes your company more valuable. When you successfully follow these strategies for branding your business, you can enjoy the name recognition and increased profits that come from having a great brand that everyone knows and loves.

Peter Koeppel is founder and president of Koeppel Direct, a leader in direct response television media buying, marketing, campaign management and creative strategies. With more than 20 years of marketing and advertising experience, Koeppel has helped Fortune 500 companies, small businesses and entrepreneurs develop marketing campaigns to increase profits. Koeppel is a Wharton MBA, and improved the media buying strategies and advertising for clients such as The Hair Club for Men, Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, Ben Hogan Golf, H.J. Heinz and DIRECTV.

Due to many factors, REALTOR competition is more intense than it has ever been. According to the National Association of REALTORS, there are now over 2.5 million real estate licensees. Michigan has also seen a surge in real estate professionals over the last few years, and now MAR has over 34,000 REALTOR members. These numbers give consumers more choices when deciding which REALTOR is right for them, but this may leave REALTORS wondering how they can get and retain clients.
 
SIMPLE SOLUTION: REALTORS need good, solid branding, marketing, media buying and advertising techniques. That sounds good, but in reality that advice can seem more overwhelming than helpful, especially if you are a REALTOR working in a smaller office or for yourself. Where should you start? Michigan REALTOR has brought together some experts in this field to give you useful advice on how to stand out in a such a vast population.
 
“Many REALTORS offer very similar services. To stand apart from the competition you need to focus on what’s unique about the way you do business,” said Peter Koeppel, founder and president of Koeppel Direct, a leader in direct-response television media buying, marketing, campaign management and creative strategies. With over 20 years of marketing and advertising experience, he has helped Fortune 500 companies, small businesses and entrepreneurs develop marketing campaigns to increase their profits.
 
Koeppel stresses that REALTORS need to think outside the box to find out what they can offer to make them unique in the industry, suggesting it could be your level of commitment or an area of specialty. Once you discover what it is that makes you different, use that in your branding and marketing. “Narrow the focus of what you offer, so people think of you first when looking for a particular type of REALTOR,” he said.

Peter Koeppel is president of Koeppel Direct, a leading infomercial and direct response media buying firm.
Â

MySpace takes a low key approach to drtv advertising. The ads blend into the content. There are other social network sites such as Facebook.com, Buzz-Oven, Bebo and Xanga.com. The large brand advertisers with products targeted at this audience are experimenting with advertising on these sites. They are using promotions to engage visitors. They are giving away products and using contests and videos to promote their products. Kids are influencing other kids to buy products promoted on the sites, according to Business Week.
 
Media buyers need to be aware that what’s hot today may not be next year. Friendster.com was the cool social networking site last year, but now MySpace is the hot site, so it’s important to stay on top of the latest trends. If you have a teenager, they more than likely know about these sites and many visit them regularly. Teenage girls 12-17 are the biggest users of these sites, as reported by Nielsen. According to Business Week, teens have increased their computer time for social networking by a factor of three over the last five years. MySpace tries to educate kids about online safety, but many kids divulge personal information online, according to USA TODAY. So parents are encouraged to monitor their children’s activities on the web.
 
Direct response marketers who want to stay ahead of the curve, need to develop integrated, multi-channel, advertising campaigns that incorporate direct response TV, online, print and radio media buying, in order to reach not only the teen market, but other consumer segments that are increasingly making purchase decisions online. Social networking websites should definitely be considered as part of the media mix if your product is geared towards a teenage or college audience.  Align yourself with an experienced direct response media buyer who understands how to buy ad space on these sites.

Peter Koeppel is Founder and President of Koeppel Direct

In a series of articles in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Ad Age, I recently read with amazement about the incredible growth and power of Google.  They pointed out that Google will sell over $6 billion in ads, doubling what they sold the prior year. That equates to more advertising than is sold by any TV network, magazine publisher or newspaper chain. Next year Google is expected to generate more than $9.5 billion in ad revenue, which will place it among the top four American media buying companies. To give you an idea of how big Google has become those revenues will put it ahead of NBC Universal and Time Warner in ad sales. In addition, their profits are increasing more than 100% a year. They have a market value of $120 billion, their stock is trading at $400, up 300% since their IPO and they have close to $8 billion in cash and marketable securities.  That’s enough money to buy a small cable network.

Google is even contemplating getting into TV advertising. This could have a profound effect on the TV industry, since Google tends to drive down prices in markets it enters. The DRTV model is more suited to Google vs. brand advertising, since their platform is based on precise measurement and tracking of results. Google is also interested in delivering TV ads tailored to each viewer through set top boxes, according to the Times. If they had their own TV channel or network, I’m sure it would allow consumers to search for a particular show, video or product. All these developments could provide an excellent opportunity for DRTV advertisers and DRTV media buyers.
 
Companies like Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSN aren’t just standing around allowing Google to dominate the online search and ad business. Yahoo has been buying up Internet companies and Microsoft has made improving their search capability their top priority. So I don’t expect Google to totally dominate the online ad business, which will translate into more competition and better rates and advertising options for marketers and media buyers.

Peter Koeppel is Founder and President of Koeppel Direct