Google TV Ads

This is an interesting service for marketers:

Thanks to the march of technology, you can now put together your own TV advertising campaign and get your ad seen on major networks... all without the need for an advertising agency. Google has made it easy for you, if you care to risk the money. This is an amazing capacity to have, but of course it's going to require some skill and thought to take proper advantage of it.

First, you need to decide if the demographics of the TV audience are a good match for the demographics of your product or service. Research this first; the networks are usually happy to give out demographic information on their viewers, and you should have a pretty good idea of your potential user base... right? Second, you'll need a good TV ad. This will require skill and effort to put together, and it may well cost you thousands of dollars to get the necessary talent and equipment. (Don't be discouraged; TV ads usually cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to produce, so if you can do it on the cheap, that's a big win.) Third, you'll want to track the results, so make sure to direct the ad viewers to a unique web site (or landing page) so that you know precisely how many people you snagged. And then measure how many actually clicked through and bought something. Ideally, you'll bring in enough new business to pay for the ad production and the ad buy, and hopefully a good bit more. The beauty of this program is that you can constrain your ad buy to a minimal level (hundreds of dollars) until you're sure it works. If it doesn't work, you're only out the cost of making the video, and hopefully the video can be used on your web site and in other ways. It's an inexpensive way to test out an awesome marketing tool.