How I Created a Television Commercial to Promote My Small Business

Posted on November 24th, 2009 by Peggy Duncan

When I opened The Digital Breakthroughs Institute, a technology and productivity training center in Atlanta, Georgia, I decided that in addition to the Internet, TV would be one of the mediums I’d use to promote my classes throughout the metro area.

My first commercial will promote one of my workshops, Get Organized At Work. I’m advertising on Comcast Cable and will be able to spread 15- and 30-second spots over at least nine networks. With the help of my producer, here is what was involved in creating this commercial and getting it on the air.

Chose a problem and its solution. I didn’t want to promote The Digital Breakthroughs Institute (DBI) in general. I decided to focus on one problem that my workshop, Get Organized At Work, solves. Getting organized is crucial to helping the people left behind after layoffs who are trying to do the work of two or more people. It makes a difference because you can easily get back two or more hours every day and you see and feel the results immediately.
Determined the demographics of my ideal audience. Based on the attendance to my previous public workshops, I knew I’d need to appeal to working, professional women (and small business owners), aged 30-55, with higher than average incomes. (Men come to training also, but not as much as women.)
Developed narrative for the voice-over. To keep the voice-over to 15 seconds, I used a Web-based stop watch timer and repeated the words until I got it down to 13 seconds. I also did the same thing for a 30-second spot. Once that was set, the producer sent it to the voice talent for a quick turnaround.
Chose the music. I had a theme song created some time ago and use it to open some of my sessions at major conferences. This music was perfect because it’s upbeat, and I own the rights to it. I had to convert the music from the .wav format to .mp3 and that was easy with a free, basic version of Switch Plus Audio Converter.
Chose the photos. Powerful photos tell the story. With my producer’s help, we chose photos that blend perfectly with the spoken word. We bought photos from istockphoto.com because its copyright approves of photos being used in commercials.
Tweaked and tweaked. I’m very particular but my producer was terrific. She was so patient and agreed that the changes I was suggesting made for a better product (Kim Waymer McClure with Comcast, 404.725.6176, Kim_McClure a/t Cable.Comcast.com).
Created a budget. You’ll have the most success with a TV ad if it runs all the time. I’ve allocated a monthly amount for airtime and will adjust it as needed.
Chose the networks and zones. With my budget, I can’t air the commercial on all the Comcast networks nor throughout the entire Metro Atlanta area. This decision was (and continues to be) the most painful because, while Comcast has all the information I need to make decisions on where to advertise, that information is spread over several documents. It was overwhelming for someone who doesn’t buy advertising for a living. I used Excel to streamline the data. The list of zones is listed in an Excel spreadsheet so I filtered the list so I’d only see the ones I’m interested in. Then I made a couple of extra columns and added more specific information about the demographics from a different Comcast form. With all the information more succinct and organized, I was able to make better decisions.
Created a special Website. This workshop is all about getting organized at work. I registered the domain and created a Wordpress blog specifically for this training (Wordpress training is offered at DBI). Check it out at www.GetOrganizedAtWork.com.
Converted video and posted online. The producer sent me the finished product in QuickTime format (.mov). I popped it into Movavi Video Converter and converted the file to .avi (Movavi is the one software I found that can convert video and keep the quality). Then I created a new project in Camtasia with the .avi file and edited the file to delete unwanted portions (that was for the TV station’s use only). After that, I rendered the file into the Flash format. (All this might sound like a lot of work, but it’s not when you already know how to do it. This only took me about 10 minutes.) See the commercial here on my YouTube TV channel.

The next step is to monitor the buzz. I’ll track the traffic to the blog Website using Google Analytics, and I’ll ask registrants how they heard about the training. All of this is a test, and I’ll try different things all the way to success.

Let me know if you see the spot on Atlanta TV, and let me know what you think about all this. And if you need help putting your commercial together, let me know.

Resources That Might Also Help

10 Essentials to an Effective TV Commercial

Create Your Own TV Ad – SpotMixer is a technology you can use to create your own TV ad. You’ll still have to do much of what I’ve mentioned above, and you’ll have to purchase a version of your ad that’s high enough quality for television. (We did not use this.)

How Come Your TV Commercials Aren’t Working