What can DRTV do for your charity?

Throughout the life of advertising there have been many different ways to utilize marketing to convey a message to the masses. One of the most trusted has been television ads. When television ads made their debut in 1955, they changed the world of advertising drastically. Recently there has been a different type of dramatic shift in advertising. Companies are focusing more on digital than on TV but is this the right decision? Isn’t there something to be said for campaigns hitting all the areas that consumers participate in? Through research and our own personal experience here at LIKECHARITY we think that it’s vital to maintain TV ads and campaigns while make them consistent throughout for our clients campaigns.

There is a big misconception that TV advertisement is not effective anymore; however, it is quite the opposite. According to Joel Rubinson (p. 220), over the past 15 years, TV has not declined in its effectiveness at generating sales lift and appears to be more effective than either online or print at generating brand awareness and recognition. This is something that here at LIKECHARITY we see to be as true as well. Not only do we help charities increase their donations we increase their brand awareness. We utilize Direct Response Television (DRTV) to capitalize on the viewer's emotions which leads to an increase in donations for our clients. Without utilizing DRTV we would be failing to capitalize on an entire section of the population. DRTV ads are suppose to create an emotional pull the very first time they are viewed versus the consumer ads that rely on repetition.

For many years trying to get the right measurements on how to successfully track TV ads has been a struggle and may play a large role in why there is such a misconception surrounding this type of marketing. Fortunately as technology has developed, so has tracking advertising success. The tracking systems allow the advertisers to gauge what ad is effective, what time to air the advert based on when it is most effective, when it has the highest response rate and when your target audience is most likely to view your ad.

Like any kind of advertising and marketing, each piece has a specific target audience. By eliminating TV advertisement and strictly replacing it with digital, there is a huge part of the market that isn’t being capitalized on. Certain generations tend to interact with TV more than they do digital and vice versa. Of course there is overlap, which is a good thing! The more consumers recognize your brand, the more likely they are to consume your product or in the case of LIKECHARITY’s clients, donate to your organization.

There is not only one “right” way to utilize marketing and advertising but there is a lot of research that specifies which methods have proven to be the most efficient and effective. Next time your organization or charity is creating their marketing strategy, be sure to consider including DRTV!