This series, oriented towards local businesses, will examine the use of paid local television programming and the internet in market domination. This article describes the fundamental process and the logic behind it.

A fundamental problem for small businesses and their advertising budgets is that they typically don’t set aside money for research and development. Small business owners can be short-sighted when it comes to R&D because they view it as the purview of large companies with corresponding high-dollar advertising resources. But big organizations don’t set aside funds for R&D because they have more money to spend; they invest in it because it works.

Small-business owners often approach advertising with the view that the advertising they buy, whether the selected venue is television, radio, the internet, billboard, or print, must pay off immediately in the form of increased revenue. They also tend to switch advertising methods frequently, spending two or three months on one campaign, then jumping to another without giving the first campaign the opportunity to max out. To optimize their advertising budgets, small businesses must follow the large-company paradigm.

Small businesses can dominate their markets using a combination of local paid programming and an optimized website for around $40 per day. Many business owners simply don’t understand the process. Here are the basics:

• As with any specialty, you’ll need to hire a professional. Only the professionals at a television production company with years in the industry will have the connections to get your infomercial professionally produced and properly placed for a reasonable price. To use the process described here, hire a TV production company that can also optimize your website so the two elements can work in concert.
• Accept that when a 30-second commercial comes on, 60% of television viewers will immediately click away. This is part of a learned process that occurs because the appearance of a set of television commercials is easy for viewers to predict and the existence of a remote control makes it easy for them to react. Thirty-second commercials do have their place; they are excellent vehicles for a short-term vertical push, such as a holiday sale or other special event.
• Top-of-mind awareness in the world of television requires longevity. Viewers will watch part or all of a 30-minute infomercial because they’re interested in the program, whether they are in the market for the featured product or service or not. When they develop a desire or need for the product or service at any point in the future, the infomercial will have created top-of-mind awareness that pushes them toward a purchase from the company they “know” through the infomercial.
• An optimized website is the second component of this process. In today’s business world, a website is just as important a tool as the telephone; a website that isn’t optimized is the equivalent to not having the phone hooked up. Business-owners who invest in a website without optimizing it will not get any traction from it, because the site will languish on the back pages of the internet, where no one will ever see it.

The next article in this series will offer details of how you can get started on this process right away and what to look for in a vendor.