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Gary Davis
Gary Davis

TelevisionAdvertising.com is brought to you by Gary Davis Media, of Austin, Texas. Founded in 1988, GDM specializes in TV advertising for small business & professionals with a particular emphasis on legal advertising.
What Your Ad Agent Should Do For You!

How he or she should help you make more money with television!

1. Help You Create a Good Offer. Your agent should ask you lots of questions about your business and your customers. The agent should help you come up with an offer that is so compelling that, ideally, prospects who see your ad on TV will go immediately to their phones and call you.

2. Write and Produce a Selling Commercial. Your first TV spot should feature a good offer, make that offer very clear, and tell the prospects how to contact you. Beware! Many television commercial producers have no idea how to do even these basic things!

3. Help You Get Good Rates. In general, an agency that places many thousands of dollars worth of TV advertising every year is going to get better rates than an individual advertiser.

4. Buy the Best Commercial Time For Your Offer. A good agent takes into consideration not only the Nielsen ratings but other, more subtle, factors, learned through long experience, that make some time slots work while others don't. For example, expensive prime-time TV typically produces less response than much cheaper daytime programming. Many agents never learn that.

5. Help You Track Results. Your agent should be able to help you and your employees find out where your prospects saw your commercials, so that each time you book a new schedule you can incorporate what you have learned to make each new schedule more effective than the last.

6. Help Insulate You From Media Salespeople. This can be no small thing. Once TV, radio and print salespeople see your commercial on the air, they will all be calling you. And calling you. And calling you. If you have an agent, you just say, "Call my agent" once and you're done with it.

7. Responsibly Account For Your Money. The agent should account, to the penny, for every dollar you spend with him. If he cannot, something is wrong. You should get, on a regular basis, a statement that details money in/money out and is backed up with TV station invoices.

What You Should Do For Your Ad Agent!

Working with an agency is a two-way street. Don't even start with an agent unless you're really committed to going ahead, testing the TV waters, and continuing if your test proves successful. Don't throw out big advertising budget figures to lure in a good agent, then pull back when it comes time to book the schedule. Return your agent's calls promptly and deal with him or her honestly and directly. Stay in touch; don't just disappear from view if you're undecided about what you want to do. In summary, treat your agent as you would like to be treated.