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I once spent $39.95
for a bottle of household cleaner (and
then later went on it sell the same
product on TV). Now, I’m not sure this
was the smartest purchase I’ve ever
made, but it sure seemed so when the
salesman was at my door. The reason?
His presentation built so much
value for the product. He demonstrated
it, he talked about this universe of
things it would clean, he talked up
the ingredients, he even drank the stuff,
for heaven’s sake!
Before you ask for money,
you have to build an overwhelming case
for the idea that your product is going
to be huge, a real plus, in the consumer’s
mind.
#7)
Clean Up Your Offer
How many times have
you been confused about what a TV commercial
is selling?
Almost never, right?
The offers also seem so clear,
the price and what you get seem so straightforward,
you wonder:
how could anybody screw up an
offer?
Unfortunately, it’s
easy.
The fact is, you almost
always see a clear offer on a TV commercial,
because you’re only looking at successful
commercials. The ones that didn’t work,
well, they’re just not on TV after a
few days. They died. And it probably
had a lot to do with the offer.
When you’re in the script
business, you see a lot of drafts with
half-baked or confusing offers. Or offers
that just aren’t that exciting. It’s
your job to clean them up, add the punch
and clarity to them.
Now, a lot of DRTV copywriters
don’t consider this within their realm.
Sometimes they (or their clients) figure
they’ve been hired to write, let the
marketing boys set the offer. I say,
you’ve been hired to make a successful
commercial. To that end, you ought to
fight for whatever will make it work.
Many times, that means
you have to put on your marketing hat
and re-work the client’s entire marketing
strategy. You may have to change what
is offered, or what the price is, or
the way that the product is sold for
TV. In this area, it helps to have experience
and knowledge of what has and hasn’t
worked in this tricky little medium
before. Re-structuring an offer is some
of the hardest and loneliest work you
can do on a project. But it’s also the
work that can have the biggest payoff.
#8)
Guaranteed Results
“The product is king”.
You hear that a lot in DRTV. But the
fact is, no consumer ever actually sees
or touches or smells a product they
see on TV. All they ever see is what
you choose to show them. Which is why
your presentation has to be great. And
why you have to have a dynamite guarantee.
The guarantee is probably
the most under-used weapon in the DRTV
marketer’s arsenal. It’s like the offer
itself in that a lot of writers don’t
know what to do with it, or that they’re
allowed to change it, yet it has such
an important job to do in your marketing.
Remember, your viewer
doesn’t know you, has never actually
seen your product, and so she has a
right to be skeptical. You take those
fears away with a great guarantee that’s
stated powerfully. You can take away
fears, and allow her to reach for her
phone.
#9) Super Impressions
Here’s another way to
punch up the power of your commercial:
punch up your supers.
Supers, of course, are
the words and graphics that are going
to be displayed on the screen. They
are copy, yet they’re usually shown
on the left side of the page by the
shot descriptions, so they often get
overlooked.
A good super makes an
important copy point. It reiterates
a point that the announcer is making
in the audio, or it makes a sub-point
(i.e., “available in Original or BBQ
flavor) that clarifies the sale.
A good writer doesn’t
turn in the script until all the supers
are there, carefully worded and placed.
He even works out the wording of the
legal disclaimers, since most lawyers
only went to law school because they
couldn’t write (don’t sue me, I’m just
kidding).
#10) The 1-2-3 of
Timing
Is your script too long?
Too short?
Do the supers come in at the
right times, and do pitch the price
at the right moment?
All of these are critical
decisions, and you will have to make
them at one time or another. My recommendation
is to make them now, at the script stage,
instead of frantically cutting or writing
copy on the edge of the set as your
production budget goes out the window.
Time your script. Read
each paragraph of copy and note it’s
duration (At McNamara & Associates,
our script format has a special column
where we type these in).
It will help you know
if you’re too long or shot. And it will
offer you valuable insights into the
key moments when hit critical points
in your sales message.
#11) Illegal Holding
You ought to have your
script reviewed by an attorney who knows
DRTV. And ought to have all the powers-that-be
at your company review it, too, even
if you have to sit and explain it to
them a line at a time.
Now, you’ve heard this
before. But sooner or later, you won’t
bother to do it. Then, on the day of
your shoot, somebody will frantically
call you and say you’ve got to change
something. Or worse yet, you’ll have
shot your commercial, it will have tested
successfully, and then you’ll find out
that you have to make changes.
It’s at this point that
you’ll discover the difference in cost
between writing on paper and re-writing
on video. It’s a difference that can
cost as much as a beach house.
Most “revisions” easily
cost more than the original script,
especially if you figure in the cost
of your time, your attorney’s, editing
suites, etc.
I can’t tell you how
many times clients have come to me in
this awful situation. We’ve played “show
doctor” on many, many projects, which
forces us to not only be creative but
to be so using a jigsaw puzzle of existing
footage and elements.
We do our best. But
each time we do it, we always wish that
somebody would have started things out
the right way from the get-go.
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Jim McNamara
is president of McNamara & Associates,
an LA-based company that writes
and produces infomercials and
DRTV spots. Over the last 25
years, his ads have sold more
than $1 billion worth of products
and services for clients like
ThighMaster, Jenny Craig, Dean
Martin, MindPower, and more.
Reach him at (818) 907-6212
or Jim@mcdrtv.com.
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