By Lou Bortone

Producing a television ad can seem a daunting and expensive task. Fortunately, with today’s easy access to TV production tools, creating a TV spot is well within your reach. One caveat: While making a TV ad can be relatively easy, producing a GOOD one is much more challenging. Don’t get so caught up in the production process that you lose sight of your advertising objective – it’s not creative unless it sells!

Here are 7 steps to producing your TV ad:

1. Set clear goals and a budget

Know and communicate your marketing objective. Determine your budget and develop a plan. What do you hope to achieve with your TV ad? Where, when and how frequently will it run? Ad placement can affect your overall production budget. Consider low-cost options, such as cable or the local affiliates of ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS. Or find your local cable provider in the CAB directory and contact the advertising sales division for rates.

2. Determine your target audience

Television is still a mass medium, but you’d better know your target before you shoot! Who are you trying to reach, and will your message resonate with your intended audience? For a reasonable monthly fee, DemographicsNow.com offers access to comprehensive market data to help you understand your customers.

3. Write your script

Craft your message and determine your content. Be sure to refine your script and storyboard — a visual representation of each shot in your ad — until you’re convinced the commercial is ready to shoot. If you’re not a scriptwriter, consider hiring an ad agency or a freelance writer to craft your ad. NationalTVSpots.com offers scripting services as part of its TV ad production packages. Find screen and scriptwriters at Guru.com.

4. Plan the shoot

You’ll need to decide on the “creative” for your TV ad. Considerations include tone, pacing, mood, style, music, etc. Should it be humorous? Dramatic? Animated? The clearer your vision before the shoot, the better television you’ll produce. Cheap-TV-Spots.com, which specializes in producing low-cost spots for entrepreneurs and small businesses, will help you focus your TV ad on what makes your business unique.

5. Consider ready-made video

Cut production costs dramatically by using existing advertising video footage and simply adding your audio message to it. For about $500, SpotRunner.com lets you choose from an extensive library of high-quality ads that you can customize with your own message.
6. Use cable production services
Many cable companies and network affiliates offer production services to small businesses. If you’re going to place your ads with them, you may be able to negotiate deep discounts on production costs.

7. DIY

Cut costs and maintain total control by shooting your ad yourself. Software called “Visual Communicator” from Serious Magic allows you to create pro videos with just a Webcam and some pre-packaged graphics and effects.

Finally, a few other things to keep in mind…

•Focus on a single item in your ad – a product, a service or an event. Or highlight what makes your company unique – fast turnaround, high quality, free delivery or friendly service.

•If you do decide to go it alone, creativity is still key. A good idea with lower production values is still better than a slick ad that doesn’t drive home your message.

•Some local TV stations will provide commercial production services for an additional fee when you buy an ad schedule.

•Think about other “venues” for your finished TV ad, such as streaming video on your website.

By Dolson McArt

Advertising can get your cleaning business be noticed to all your potential customers. You may not be an expert or marketing guru, but you can do things to promote your business in order to obtain customers. Take note, before you spend money for advertisement, you need to decide your target market for your business. Finding your market and focusing on putting ads to that specific area, you can effectively and efficiently get the customers that you are seeking for.

Before anything else, you need to set and allocate advertising budget. If you are already earning with your business, you need to dedicate about 2 to 5% of your gross sales for advertising your business. But if you are just getting started, you need more money to advertise your business. Of course, you need to announce your new cleaning service in order to gain potential clients.

You decide where to advertise, once you’ve set a budget for it. If you are going to advertise your cleaning business it could not make any sense to advertise it with huge magazine or let it be aired in a TV commercial. These are expensive ads and would not reach your target market.

It would be better if you post an ad in your local newspaper. This is the most basic advertising way that you can do for your business. This is great way for you to promote your business to your potential customers.

You goal here is to attract the attention of your potential customers with your advertisement. Yes, it is obvious that you should attract attention with your ad, but if it can’t, then you just wasted your money with nothing, so you have to be sure that you can attract attention.

In making an ad, you need to address the needs of the readers. Make sure to tell how they will benefit from your cleaning service. And show that you have a new system that can make their homes and offices cleaner and healthier. In your ad, you should tell the great things that they can get from you and that yours is the best cleaning service in your area. The best ways to convince potential customers are through testimonials, awards and statistics.