DM News

Tim Hawthorne, Chairman and Executive Creative Director of Hawthorne Direct, explains to direct marketers what Videoactive Advertising (TM) is all about, and why DRTV experts are uniquely equipped to thrive in the digital era.

eMarketer reports that spending on social network marketing should reach $2.5 billion in four short years, hitting 900 million by the end of this year. Aren’t 2.0 campaigns popular because they aren’t supposed to cost much? Apparently not.

The best-practice tips are geared to online browser or browser-equivalent-based Internet activity where page content changes and ad serving are no longer linked.A standardized set of measurement guidelines is critical for online advertising as new technologies develop and outpace current tracking infrastructure.

Forrester Research surveyed 170 interactive marketers to find out budget priorities for the next year.
Forrester found interactive marketers rely heavily on traditional channels like e-mail, search and banner ads. However, marketers are more willing now than last year to experiment with new social media like blogs and RSS.

Timing is everything, and marketers who spend too much time overdoing it on the legwork often wind up missing the boat and going broke in the process. That doesn't mean you can't conduct some meaningful research before you put your DRTV commercial on the air, but it does mean that you should maximize your time by doing only the kind of research that will actually translate into valuable information that can be used to tweak a campaign into success.

No one likes to change. After all, mixing things up takes brainpower, effort and usually money – all of which we'd rather conserve than shell out on a new marketing program. But if the method is too enticing and profitable to resist, we'll do it anyway, right?

William Goldman said it succinctly: "Nobody knows anything." Goldman, acclaimed Hollywood scriptwriter of hits like "Butch Cassidy" and "All the President's Men," was referring, of course, to the near impossible task of producing blockbuster movies. But right now, on Madison Ave. and in corporate board rooms across the world, "nobody knows anything" about where video advertising will be in 10 years. No. Make that next year.

Try this one on for size: "10 Million Business E-Mail Addresses Worldwide on CD! Send you advertising message..." No one in the direct response TV industry would fall for a product like that. Shotgun advertising does not work. Anyone involved with the Internet for any length of time also knows what spam is and what will happen to you and your business if you indulge in it.

Months of production and planning work have finally paid off when those tapes are neatly packaged and ready to be shipped to the TV stations. Suddenly, all the effort and the sweat equity will turn into profits when your infomercial airs and viewers start dialing their phones to buy your product.

But before you deliver those tapes, consider this: Did you close-caption your infomercial?

For perhaps the first time in its history, the federal government is forcing something on our industry that could actually increase our profits in explosive proportions. This mandate, included in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, legally required that all infomercials longer than 10 minutes be closed-captioned in the first quarter of 2000.