The National Small Business Week period is an ideal time to explore innovative advertising strategies to help smaller businesses increase their reach and relevance with customers. Small businesses can take advantage of the key benefits of TV through data-driven targeting strategies. This is a way to increase brand recognition as well as relevance and engagement with potential customers, which ultimately leads to increased sales.
Seven key benefits of multi-screen TV
The secret of success and growth for brands – regardless of size or budget – is leveraging the seven key benefits of multi-screen TV. What are they?
- Storytelling: Television advertising combines video, sound and motion. This combination allows you to convey a brand message, reinforce brand identity, and increase consumer engagement.
- Availability and accessibility: The greater availability of products in the digital era, for example through e-commerce, allows brands to leverage TV earlier in their lifecycle.
- Legitimising function: Television creates, builds, and enhances the reputation of brands while legitimising their products or services through high-quality programming.
- Targeting capability: Scalable, data-driven targeting solutions such as addressable TV, VOD, and data-enabled linear TV increase efficiency and reduce waste.
- Inclusivity: Enhanced targeting capabilities through advanced TV solutions bring efficiencies that reduce traditional initial costs.
- Hello effect: TV significantly improves the performance and ROI of all other digital channels and online platforms.
- Results across the funnel: With improved measurement and enhanced attribution capabilities, television has demonstrated its potential to positively influence brand outcomes.
Opportunity to reach consumers effectively
Audience-based TV buying offers the optimal combination of the benefits of multi-screen TV that can leverage first-party data, allowing SMEs to reach customers effectively. It is the process of segmenting audiences beyond traditional demographics to target groups of consumers based on their buying habits, personal characteristics, or viewing behaviour (shows, genres watched). This is a more accurate and cost-effective way to reach new customers than solely based on age or gender.
Purchasing habits can include, for example, occasional visits to a restaurant, home furnishings, buying software or a new car. Personal characteristics include, for example, whether the person is a family member planning financial expenditures, a new parent, or an individual who primarily shops online. Television viewing behaviour specifies whether the consumer watches news, or sports, or prefers drama or social events.
Current tactics used in audience-based TV buying
Audience-based TV buying allows companies to easily reach and engage multiple target customer groups on premium TV platforms that are safe for the brand. As part of this strategy, 49% of marketers are running their campaigns across different platforms/screens beyond linear TV. 44% are targeting multiple audiences in order to focus on the best customer prospects. 41% are targeting different audiences across different screens. 31% of marketers are using an audience-based TV buying self-serve platform developed by a media partner.
In addition, audience-based TV buying allows companies to easily tailor and customise creative to reach potential customers optimally. 91% of marketers feel that creative messaging can have a significant impact on the success of a TV campaign. 80% of marketers tailor their creative to contextually relevant TV programming that targets audience segment(s). 74% often customise their creative to be tailored to specific campaigns.
Survey of 25 B2B advertisers
VAB wanted to understand how SMEs are using TV to acquire new customers and surveyed 25 B2B advertisers who had recently launched their first TV campaign. Between 2018 and 2022, these 25 brands advertised on 118 national TV networks, 132 genres, and 6,843 shows.
The B2B brands, many of which are SMEs, saw double-digit growth in website visitors when they launched their TV ads, and the number continued to increase throughout the campaign.
Positive results for companies of all sizes
The findings from a decade of research show that television delivers results for businesses of all sizes, regardless of their budget and the lifecycle stage of the targeted customers. The conclusions are clear: No budget is too small for TV, no business is too young for TV, and no business is too “specific” for TV. Television is for everyone.
Source: VAB
