About Gary Davis Media -- an ad agency in Austin, Texas,
specializing in TV advertising for small business and
professionals.
My clients sell
services people need. Quite a few of them are attorneys --
social security disability law, personal injury, medmal,
criminal. Others include three dental clinics, an auto
insurance agency, a buyer of used gold and jewelry, and a
personal loan company. I am in Austin, Texas, but most of
my clients are in other cities.
Immediate Response TV
advertising. That's
primarily what I do. By "Immediate Response", I mean
commercials that attempt to persuade prospects to take
action -- usually call my client -- now. (I use "Immediate
Response" rather than "Direct Response" because "DR" has
come to suggest the sale of products. My specialty is
selling services rather than products.)
Your offer: The most
important ingredient. I encourage and work with my clients to
help them make great offers. Their offers are what they
want to trade the prospects for the prospects' time and
money. When an offer is good, it usually doesn't take much
advertising to get results.
TV commercials need not
be expensive to make. For some Immediate Response advertisers,
a basic "graphics" commercial consisting of an announcer's
voice and music over changing words on the screen, is all
that is required. Cost to produce: $250-$450. More typical
productions, with the client or a spokesperson on camera,
can be made for around $700. Remember, it is your offer,
not how much money was spent making your commercial, that
does the most to make it work.
Commercials produced at
cost. In most cases,
when I make commercials to be placed by my agency, I make
them for my actual studio cost. There is no markup to my
clients. If the commercial works, I'll do just fine from
the "agency commission" I get from the TV stations.
High-quality results
from low-cost airtime. During the 1950's, Alvin Eicoff, the
inventor of radio and TV "direct response" commercials,
discovered that expensive, heavily-watched, prime-time TV
produced inferior telephone response. Much less expensive
daytime programming produced more calls for the dollar.
Still true today.
Commercial
copyrights. When an
agency like mine makes a commercial, it owns the copyright
to the commercial, unless it's signed over by contract. In
most cases, I don't charge anything for writing and
producing my clients' commercials. I only get reimbursement
for my actual expenses. So, I keep the copyrights. The
commercials must be placed through my agency. If someone
wants me to produce a commercial that will not be placed
through my agency, then I will charge for my creative
services and sign over the rights to the client.
Paying for your
schedule. All of my
clients pay as they go for their TV advertising. That does
not mean that they have to pay for everything we book up
front, as soon as we book it. We may book TV time for a
couple of weeks, a month or a year (schedules cancelable
with 2-weeks notice to the stations) depending on what kind
of deals I can get -- but most clients pay by the month for
the next month's airtime, a few days before the month's
schedule begins. Read this if you wonder why I handle all my TV
business this way and why I suggest you do too.
The financial
statement. My clients
regularly receive a statement, detailing to the penny the
money they have paid to me and what I have paid out on
their behalf, backed with invoices from TV stations and
other vendors.
Yes, I'm always looking
for a few more good clients! But I only make money when my clients are
successful and continue advertising. So -- I am only
looking for clients whom I am convinced I can help. If
you've looked through what I've had to say here and you
think you might like to work with me, please
send me an
email.
New clients I'm looking for
now.
These are people in businesses where I have a track
record, over several years, of producing exceptional
telephone response using local TV. They must be in
markets where I do not currently have a client or
prospective client in that business. At this time, I am
especially looking for Social Security disability
lawyers and denture clinics.
Want to sell a product,
rather than a service? I get a lot of email and a few calls from
people who have ideas about products they would like to
sell using direct response TV advertising. Please
understand that it's a lot harder to make money selling a
$19.95 product with a direct response TV ad than it is
selling a necessary service that can bring in thousands of
dollars from one new client.
For one thing, local "Call Now!" ads for products (as
distinct from services) usually don't work -- they require
regional or national play. Want to sell a product via
direct response TV? First, you need a great product already
in existence. You need to be able to sell it for 6X or more
what it cost you. And you need thousands of dollars you can
afford to lose to make a commercial and test it. It's a
very risky gamble.
My primary focus is on
selling services, such
as legal & dental, in local markets. I'm not saying I
would never take a client who wanted to sell a product
directly with TV, but my initial mindset about it would be
very cautious.
How do we get
started? First, I need
to know exactly what your offer is. Send me an email. Tell
me what you have in mind. I will probably have an opinion
as to whether I think there is a good likelihood your offer
will work on TV.
When you e-mail
me with questions
about your business, please include this important
information.
Please don't just send me your phone number and ask me
to call you. I probably won't, unless, frankly, you
sound as though you are exactly a type of potential
advertiser I am looking for right now. But I will
certainly respond to your e-mail and try to help you
that way.
I won't just tell you what I think you want to hear. I'll
tell you honestly what I think and you can take that for
whatever it is worth to you. After you read my response,
please send me at least a short reply with your reaction to
it. I want your feedback to what I had to say.