Ecommerce sales simply means selling via the internet. Etsy and Amazon are two great examples of companies who operate in this way.
When it comes to growing your ecommerce sales, you need to think of new ways to engage your target consumer. Gone are the days when you only had to choose between placing a half page ad in the local press, or running off a load of flyers for a direct mail drop. Now, you need to expand your marketing efforts to get your business seen.
There’s a plethora of platforms all waiting to take your money with the promise to drive your ecommerce sales. Social media, YouTube, and digital advertising are among some of the new kids on the block.
And as the choice widens, you may find yourself asking which is the right option for my ecommerce business? How can we increase sales? How can we generate interest? How can we break into new markets?
For anyone looking to grow their business, it’s a minefield.
It begs the question, ‘In a world of choice, why should I use TV advertising to drive my ecommerce sales?’
Well we hope to answer your burning question in this blog post!
How TV Advertising Can Help
Of course, we’re a TV Agency and it’s natural for us to want to extol the benefits of TV advertising. We could talk about it at length, because as a medium, TV advertising offers not just the chance to drive ecommerce sales, but also the opportunity to gain some advantages you may not even have considered.
Think of it as the ‘Buy One Get One Free’ of marketing. Let’s take a closer look at how TV advertising can drive ecommerce sales…
Trackable
Some of the more traditional, above the line mediums can be difficult to track. For example, press and radio are notoriously difficult to check in terms of campaign effectiveness.
Let’s say you wanted to measure the response rate to your advert. This might be in the form of a phone call, a click to your website, or a brochure request. Whatever it is you want to measure, plumping for a TV advertising campaign allows you to monitor what is happening at the time that each advert goes out.
It lets you see the actions of your customers and potential customers in the minutes, hours, and days that follow the TV advert being broadcast. Specialist software is now in place to give you detailed information to see if your advert is doing all the things you intended it to.
You should set clear goals and objectives from the start and think about what you want to achieve from your TV advert.
TV advertising is hugely quantifiable, and this is invaluable to ecommerce businesses. In the absence of a physical presence such as a high street shop, you can see how interest is expressed in an alternative form.
Think about a bathroom or kitchen showroom.
The owners can physically see if they’ve had a busy day. They can ascertain how many people have come in to browse or make an inquiry. If you sell kitchens or bathrooms online, you don’t have that face-to-face interaction.
TV advertising schedules can measure that information by providing a direct and immediate set of data. This is priceless in helping you plan your future marketing strategy.
Flexible
Good news!
Your TV advert is up and running.
And it’s being tracked, but you realise it’s not working as you had hoped.
Those clicks to your website aren’t quite hitting your targets. A TV advert can be adjusted by a quick alteration of the TV schedules such as selecting a new time of day, a different demographic, or an alternative channel.
Once you have created an advert, you have control over when and where it is placed to generate the best results.
This differs greatly in comparison to a press advert as once it’s published, that’s it. There is very little you can do to come back from it.
If you need to make changes to your marketing strategy at any point, TV advertising allows flexibility and movement. What’s more, a good TV agency should work with you to make those adjustments to ensure you get the best possible rate of return.
At TVA, our team of experts work directly with you to identify exactly what you want to achieve. This ensures that your campaign is successful so you can enjoy amazing results.
For more information, or to find out more about how we can help, get in touch with our team of TV professionals!
Better Rate of Return
Did you know that ecommerce is the biggest industry to spend on TV advertising?
And for very good reason.
Statistics show that for every £1 spent, you generate a return of around £1.75.
As a TV agency we can calculate conversion rates to see how customer responses stack up against other mediums. But it’s not just about seeing a return on your invested spend. A good TV ad campaign will generate interest, brand awareness, and even increase the lifetime customer value.
The longer-term benefits complement any increase in sales which leads up nicely onto our next section!
Produces Long term benefits
Click click click.
We’re all guilty of scrolling and becoming more used to seeing adverts pop up on our social media. But as an ecommerce business, you may not need your customer to interact right away.
If you’re selling insurance, a customer who is not at their renewal point isn’t going to click or call there and then. But a TV advert plants that seed for a more useful time, perhaps later down the line.
The Go Compare adverts are so memorable, that they instantly spring to mind when you need to purchase an insurance product. You’re singing the jingle now aren’t you?
A TV advert for an ecommerce business allows a customer to respond to a product or service as and when they need it. It may even be a delayed response, but they’re interacting in their own time. There’s no pressure to hit that ‘Buy Now’ button which is often required by fast paced social media platforms.
Builds Brand Awareness
It’s obvious that you want your ecommerce business to grow, and an increase in sales will always be a welcome boost.
But advertising on TV offers something which isn’t as measureable, but just as (if not even more) valuable.
Brand Awareness.
Or to give it the glitzy TV name Brand Fame! Let’s put that name in lights. Cadbury does this really well.
Buying a chocolate bar is a small purchase, no big decision needed to grab a bar of Dairy Milk. And so, selling enough chocolate bars to offset the cost of TV advertising is no mean feat. You would need to shift a lot of units.
But Cadbury reminds us that they are there.
The swirly white writing, the luxurious purple packaging, and the classic gold logo, they’re reminding us that they’re always present. As a result, they’re always in our minds and they’re who we think of when we fancy a chocolate bar!
That’s the beauty of TV advertising by providing a little reminder.
Giving consumers a gentle nudge is enough so that when you do fancy some choccie, Cadbury is at the forefront of your mind. (Other good chocolate bars are available but perhaps they don’t advertise on TV).
Assists With Larger Ecommerce Purchasing Decisions
Let’s say you’re buying a car.
It’s a big decision and an expensive one.
There’s the cost to consider including the features, the suitability for a family, appearance, and so on. It’s a pretty sure bet that before you go to your local car showroom, you’re going to do some research to consider the things you deem to be important before parting with your hard earned cash.
That research isn’t going to be wasted with a one click ‘Buy Now’ button on social media. The buying process is quite different from that of a lower ticket item, such as a soft drink.
A TV advert can really help to provide a background for those choosing higher priced products. A customer may look online to make enquiries or to find the location of a car showroom. However, by having seen a TV ad for a certain car model, they already have an idea of what they want to buy. They have that understanding of what’s available to them via the medium of TV.
It plants the seed. It creates an awareness that is ready to be tapped into at a given time.
Continually running your adverts assists brand recognition for consumers. They know the brand, they’ve seen it on TV, it’s safe and familiar, so it must be ok right?
To then go ahead and make the purchase through an online sale doesn’t seem so daunting. That initial reassurance is already in place thanks to the TV presence built during a decent campaign.
Generates Press (Good or Bad!)
It’s an old saying in the world of PR that there’s no such thing as bad publicity and that’s true in many respects.
Some advertisers aim to be the most hated ad in order to get talked about.
We still discuss adverts from years ago, and not just the good ones.
Remember Harold Brown, the all -singing, all- dancing banker from the Halifax Advert? Whatever you thought of him, he got people talking.
And at TVA, we’d argue that you’d be hard pushed to replicate the buzz around a good TV ad with anything on social media.
Helps You Attract a Wider Audience
There’s a time when, as an ecommerce business, you’re going to hit the ceiling.
You can’t go any further with a digital or social media campaign. This is where TV advertising can really help you branch out.
Because online ads are so targeted, it’s not rocket science that those ads will hit their target audience and tend to do so quickly.
But then where do you go?
How can you attract new business or diversify to other areas?
TV adverts have a captive audience as they capture interest while a viewer is in the zone of watching. TV advertising offers a more permanent way to attract new customers because of the reach it brings.
With a multitude of channels, slots and schedules to take advantage of, that wider audience can be marked out to start casting the net further afield.
Creates a Relationship With the Public
Hurrah for all things British!
One of our favourite things about TV advertising over and above any digital media, is the relationship it has with the British Public.
A good TV advert can really tap into our culture and resonate on a more local level, than say an advert on YouTube. In terms of ecommerce, think about Churchill Insurance and their use of the bulldog character. He speaks in a broad Yorkshire accent, which gives him specific appeal to a British, or even a northern audience. We feel we could approach him or that we know him.
That kind of brand or character is very difficult to create outside of a TV advert. The advert affords us that extra time to build more of a picture around a product or service.
We are given that little bit more information, almost like the backstory.
TV Advertising Can Support Your Digital Campaign
Salt and pepper.
Fish and chips.
Ant and Dec.
What do these three pairs have in common?
Well they complement each other perfectly!
We like to think of the TV ad as the parent of the relationship. It’s been around longer so it sets the tone and is ever present.
A digital ad is like the child – new to the scene, fun, and fresh. It has aspects of it’s older parent and highlights their best bits. By working in unison, they can achieve great things.
It would be wrong to suggest anything other than a multipronged approach as a marketing strategy. But for an ecommerce business, especially one that is new to the market, it’s the stability and security which can elevate you as a company over and above everything else.
What are Industry Standards in TV Advertising?
The TV advertising industry is still pretty stringent in what it will and won’t allow.
Anything with the intention to be broadcast on TV, must first come under the scrutiny of a strict legal process. This is beneficial if you run a company with a high proportion of online sales.
Without sounding like a broken record, having a visible presence is paramount. If your company doesn’t have that in the form of a shop or physical premises, then viewers assume you’re stable if you are successful enough to be advertising on TV.
To know you have met certain standards allows consumers to feel confident in their purchasing decisions. Compare that to making a purchase on the back of a Facebook advert where sellers only have to adhere to the Facebook policies and very little else.
Consider those bigger purchases such as windows or conservatories. You’d be much more likely to go with an established company, who you have become familiar with through their TV ad campaigns. These companies are ones which aren’t making unsubstantiated claims with a reputation for longevity.
TV adverts have become a part of our viewing habits. We know they’re there and we know when to expect them. That familiarity brings with it reassurance for those making a purchase.
At TVA we understand the power of TV advertising. We want to work with you to create amazing advertising campaigns that build trust with your target consumer, and encourage them to invest. For more information, check out our approach to TV advertising.
How TV Advertising Can Drive Ecommerce Sales
Ecommerce sales can be driven by an effective TV advertising campaign. By using this tactic, you can reach a wider audience and build brand awareness. Essentially, TV becomes your shop window and gives viewers an insight into what you do and how you can benefit them before they search for your business online.
Furthermore, TV advertising instills a sense of trust and credibility as viewers usually think you have spent a lot of money on the advert. As a result, this leads them to assume that the product or service is of high quality, which encourages them to invest.
At TVA, we create, plan, and execute TV advertising campaigns that get results. Regardless of whether you’re a small or established business, our team of experts have everything you could possibly need to make a winning TV advert that grabs your audience.
And what’s more, we have some of the best production facilities around so you can be confident you’re in safe hands! Instead of listening to us brag, why not get in touch with our team of TV gurus and let’s see how we can benefit your business?