It is a new year. You have made your New Year’s resolutions. But have you made your New Year’s marketing plans? It is time to take a deep dive into your data and see if a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) strategy can improve your revenue, and if you are already utilizing that strategy, how you can improve it.

What are the five things successful DR marketers have in common? This was the subject of Script to Screen’s #ThoughtLeaderThursday webinar on January 21, 2020 when our guest was Havas Edge CEO Abed Abusaleh. You can now watch the webinar for free on-demand on this page, or on our YouTube channel.

Our Guest

 Throughout Abed’s professional career, he has been a Direct Response media specialist with proficiencies in both short and long-form planning and buying. With his guidance, experience, and insight, DRTV marketers such as Amazon, NortonLifeLock and eHealth, have all enjoyed increased sales and lower customer cost-per-acquisition.

The Full Break

In this webinar, much of the discussion was on the relatively new advertising space of the full break. The full break is a three to five minute DTC advertisement that can be placed within an entire advertising break during a television show. Traditionally, multiple advertisements are placed during a break. Alternatively, an entire half-hour spot could be given to an infomercial. The full break is an alternative way to get your message out. It gives marketers more time and space to sell their product, but be on platforms a 30 minute show would not fit.

“News channels can’t run long-form,” Abed explained. “But they can run three to five minutes.”

Superspot

Full break can be used to improve the performance of other length advertising, like an infomercial. They can even share creative from your long-form advertising. “There are the parts that work,” Abed explained. “Whether it was the testimonials, or the animation, or the storytelling about the product benefits. Within this creative are the components to create the perfect blend of what a three minute creative can look like. You can use the best features and benefits of that and create almost a super spot.

The Top 5

 According to Abed, the top five things successful DR marketers have in common are: know where you make money, when you know what your breakeven is, understand your metrics, know how they relate to the rest of your business and understand what success is. He explained how success is often something companies do not properly plan for.

“For instance, we had a Fortune 500 client that had a full break spot that was wildly successful in a very crowded category,” he said. “But their fiscal budgets had allocated the test budgets and slightly more. They had never planned for success, and there was a three month wait between when they could reinvest.”

Next Webinar

Make sure you register for our next webinar where we interview Blink Co-Founder Don Shulsinger about how the company entered a crowded consumer electronics niche and succeeded, despite competing against institutional brands.