TV AD - What Do You Think?

[Mark]

A lot of us never talk about making TV ads to sell insurance. I have a couple of my agents making ads to place on tv and wanted to share just one with you. Just to give you something to think about. I'm not sure how much it cost, or anything.

This is an ad that one of my insurance agent's LYDIA SMILEY made. It is a short 30 second ad. I wanted to share it with you all and give you something to think about.
I will have to ask her how much it cost her and how she made it.
What do you think about it?

I like it.

 

[Guest]

That's a great commercial!

 

[Mark]

I asked her in an email how much it cost and how it was doing and she said this.

"Okay. I used an independent film company for this one, RockFilmz.com, Rock Grant is the owner (334-312-3108). It cost about $1900 to do, and that included shooting time in three locations. One client is on Kidney Dialysis and the other is suffering from Severe Diabetes complications. I felt the best commercials would be testimonials. It is working for us."

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

Nice commercial.

Lydia's cute. I already have her number, is she single?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Very well made commercial - I would think it would be effective.

 

[joeblow]

Second that. Excellent commercial. I would imagine it'd work. How much to RUN it, would be my question.

And I, well-mannered fellow that I am, will refrain from commenting on the remarkable attractiveness of the agency spokesperson.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I met with a Comcast sales rep a few years back regarding cable spots. It's surprisingly affordable. Depending on the channel and time slot it can start at $10 per spot.

Here's the rub - that's one ad on one station and one time in one zone. There are 18 zones in MD so even for a $10 spot if you wanted it to run in the entire state it would be $180 - for one ad run.

It's designed to target local markets. I could target just one zone then go to town. However, there are other small rubs. Obviously the cheapest rates are on the lowest views stations.

When all the dust settled my rep advised me that in order to see any kind of real return he recommended at least $2,000 a week - for starters.

 

[Joe Moore]

What do you think about it?

I like it.

Mark,

I like it also.

We tried something similar in Tennessee about 15 years ago. First we tried a company out of Arizona specializing in Final Expense TV leads (at a cost of $23/lead). It was a "stock ad" that had worked everywhere, so it should work here. "Nationwide, agents were selling 1 out of 3". I thought boy that's only around $70 per sale. YEAH!

They used a Knoxville, TN station to broadcast it. I had 8 mostly rookie agents placed in and around Knoxville to run the leads.

We had a few serious problems.

The radius around Knoxville where the station broadcast ended up going about 200 miles out--each way. So, we ended with leads in TN, GA, NC, SC, KY, VA, and I believe one in West VA, and one in OH. We had made a commitment of 300 $23 leads over a month - total of $6900. We tried to divide up the leads in an fair manner, but still some of them were 150 miles away from the closest agent. Three of the leads were from 3 of our agents running the leads...calling the 800# just to see how the system worked. We tried to get credit for these 3, to no avail.

I had paid $6900, and maybe got back $5000, with me selling $2000 of the $5000 personally. Plus, I got to work for a month, drive about 3000 miles and lost about $1900.

So, I flunked this test, but had a new plan of attack; I felt I had learned enough to do it myself on a more localized scale, our local cable TV.

We cut the ad with 2 of our older friends (they worked real cheap.... I just had buy their dinner) posing as Final Expense clients, and me explaining the program to them. We got by for about $800 production costs, and committed to pay about $1200 for a bunch of ads. The ad caused a lot of comments by my friends and acquaintances..."you should be in Hollywood", "didn't know you were an actor", "boy, I knew everybody in the commercial", "how do you afford to spend all that money on TV?", "boy what you are offering sounds great".

Everybody saw it, but the darn phone didn't ring. We only got 3 or 4 leads off the $2000 investment, and I really don't remember making any sales off it.

I then decided that TV advertising was probably not my way to wealth.
I hope Lydia Smiley has much better success than we did.

Her ad is very well done.

 

[Newby]

I think her ad looks great and will likely do well.

 

[xrac]

Mark,

I like it also.

We tried something similar in Tennessee about 15 years ago. First we tried a company out of Arizona specializing in Final Expense TV leads (at a cost of $23/lead). It was a "stock ad" that had worked everywhere, so it should work here. "Nationwide, agents were selling 1 out of 3". I thought boy that's only around $70 per sale. YEAH!

They used a Knoxville, TN station to broadcast it. I had 8 mostly rookie agents placed in and around Knoxville to run the leads.

We had a few serious problems.

The radius around Knoxville where the station broadcast ended up going about 200 miles out--each way. So, we ended with leads in TN, GA, NC, SC, KY, VA, and I believe one in West VA, and one in OH. We had made a commitment of 300 $23 leads over a month - total of $6900. We tried to divide up the leads in an fair manner, but still some of them were 150 miles away from the closest agent. Three of the leads were from 3 of our agents running the leads...calling the 800# just to see how the system worked. We tried to get credit for these 3, to no avail.

I had paid $6900, and maybe got back $5000, with me selling $2000 of the $5000 personally. Plus, I got to work for a month, drive about 3000 miles and lost about $1900.

So, I flunked this test, but had a new plan of attack; I felt I had learned enough to do it myself on a more localized scale, our local cable TV.

We cut the ad with 2 of our older friends (they worked real cheap.... I just had buy their dinner) posing as Final Expense clients, and me explaining the program to them. We got by for about $800 production costs, and committed to pay about $1200 for a bunch of ads. The ad caused a lot of comments by my friends and acquaintances..."you should be in Hollywood", "didn't know you were an actor", "boy, I knew everybody in the commercial", "how do you afford to spend all that money on TV?", "boy what you are offering sounds great".

Everybody saw it, but the darn phone didn't ring. We only got 3 or 4 leads off the $2000 investment, and I really don't remember making any sales off it.

I then decided that TV advertising was probably not my way to wealth.
I hope Lydia Smiley has much better success than we did.

Her ad is very well done.

TV advertising can do one of two things. First, you us it to market your company and build brand awareness in the mind of your market. The other side is you use it to market a specific offer or product. Due to the limitation that Joe describes above I think that selling a product would work only if you are strictly selling by phone or have enough agents scattered over the territory to cover the leads. Based upon my own experiences I wouldn't do it. I think an equal amount of money spent on either direct mail or buying leads will generate better returns. But it is a very well done ad and she is very attractive.