Jon Samsel

Lester Wunderman, the so-called father of direct marketing, once said that “advertising becomes a dialogue that becomes an invitation to a relationship.” In his book Being Direct, he also says that direct marketing is both an art and science that communicates directly with an individual to change behavior and not just an attitude to gain a measurable response.

Direct marketing is any direct communication directed at targeted individuals or demographic where a response is asked for and expected. A response can take many forms– a phone call, a direct order, a sales lead, or traffic to a website—but in DR, a response usulally refers to the results of your campaign.

Direct Response Television (commonly referred to as DRTV) is a sub-channel of direct response marketing utilizing short form TV commercials (spots less than two minutes in length) and longer form infomercials that compel consumers into action through use of an 800 number to get direct responses to the advertiser.

Launching compelling and effective DRTV campaigns may seem easy, but as Wunderman said, it’s a little bit art and science. The key to effective DRTV is presenting a clear, concise and compelling sales presentation. The more time your have to present and sell, the more likely you are to generate responses.

The ‘art’ portion of DRTV is made up of the fun, creative aspects of shooting and presenting the spots themselves. The spokesperson you hire, the script you write, the focus group you test with, the offer presented, the live audience you coral, and the creativity of your on-screen graphics or the set you build to film in—are all critical pieces of the creative puzzle.

But the science part of DRTV success is just as important.

15 Primary Levers for Optimizing DRTV Campaigns:

1. Media planning & buying process
2. Communication & planning
3. Testing methodology / testing process
4. Audience profiling / geo-targeting
5. Integrated multi-channel campaigns
6. Day-to-day media buying and how media buyers are compensated
7. Amount of media spend / duration of campaign
8. Spot style & format
9. Final commercial or informercial / creative variations of each spot
10. The demonstration
11. Message / offer
12. Talent (spokesperson, voice over, audience, etc)
13. Supporting microsite to continue the offline conversation online / boost responses
14. Reporting, day-parting, analytics / optimizing cost to response to sales ratio
15. Performance and compensation of sales staff responding to DRTV responses