Cable TV < good for advertising?

[exasko]

I am wondering.. has anyone used Cable Tv to advertise a website? If so did you find it to be worth the cost? I am considering doing it for Exasko (if I can get the funds)

[Spencer]

Cheap local TV advertisements have been done before, but I don't remember the success rate.

[exasko]

I am looking into growing my community for my website... so I thought about TV Ads... because you constantly see the Cable Works advertisement.

[_Dana_]

are you thinking of doing it on the local cable access channel? they might let you do it for free as a community outreach thing (encouraging youth) so to speak.

[exasko]

Ah.. now that is a good idea, I look into getting that done after the new launch. Thanks!

[_Dana_]

every once in a while the ole brain starts a workin ....let me know how it turns out :D

[exasko]

I sure will... it may be awhile though

[Chicken]

Also, try to find other teen events in your area. Not sure exactly what your target age is, but there's gotta be some event or company or place that caters to that age group.

[beley]

For cable tv ads (or even large radio ads) to be very successful you already need some brand recognition. The problem with these expensive advertising mediums is that it takes a while to get brand recognition, so the first few times you advertise you won't get a good response. If you bet all your money on one campaign you're most likely going to be very very dissapointed.

Now, on the other hand, if you plan ahead and possibly plan a 3 month advertising campaign then you may reap some rewards. I can't remember where I heard it before but a potential customer has to hear about you 5 or so times before they will begin to trust you. If you advertise in a medium like television it would take a lot of advertising to hit many people multiple times.

I've tried television, radio, newspaper... just about everything out there. They all work (obviously or they wouldn't be there) but you have to be smart about them. I woudln't reccommend any mainstream advertising for very small companies. For smaller companies I'd suggest a more targeted approach such as PPC's or even local advertising.

[exasko]

Thank you all for your input, specially Chicken and _Dana_

[Simon]

Cable TV is our most succesful form of advertising to date.

Tip: when asked for channel you wish to advertise on... TV GUIDE.

Trust me, we had 100+ new local signups within 2 months, and the rates for local cable TV adverts are not expensive at all.

Best time slots: 6:26pm - 6:56pm 7:26pm - 7:56pm - 8:26pm - 8:56pm.

Reason? Prime time TV, and the times correspond with when almost have the county is saying to his wife/her husband " flick over quickly see what's on next".

It works, and we've been running cable ads for 14 months now.

Simon

[exasko]

may i ask how much you pay?

[Simon]

The costs are not as high as you'd think, i won't give an exact figure, as i don't want to get your hopes up, because my locality could be a lot smaller/cheaper than yours (i'm in Nova Scotia, Canada).

I will however, say that the ROI worked out, over a period of the first 9 month's, to be 412%

[Andrew]

Hi Simon,

I live in Toronto and decided to look into your suggestion. Now Im assuming they are going to rip me off (living in Toronto and all), but, what the hell, its worth a shot.

I'll let you know how it turns out on Monday when I speak to them.

Thanks for the tip :)

[exasko]

when you go to cable advertising, do you pay extra for them to make the advertisment?

[Simon]

Andrew, don't let them con you into taking mid-day TV, as no business owner/rep watches TV during the day, not closely anyway.

exasko, it really depends, ours is a static Ad, and the graphics are company slogans/logo's that are well know in this part of the world, and designed by our own guys, so we only had a small(ish) fee to pay when submitting the AD