Advantages and Disadvantages of Television Advertising for Small Businesses

If you can afford television advertising, you can typically benefit in a greater manner than using any other form of media. Your ad, however, needs to be carefully written and produced to be effective. For that reason, it is often advisable to hire an advertising agency to work with you while creatinga suitable television commercial campaign.

Advantages of advertising on television:

# Reach a large demographic audience.
# Lends a degree of credibility.
# You can establish a specific image more easily.
# It allows for much more creativity.
# You can establish your presence or introduce a new product very quickly.





Disadvantages of television advertising

# High production costs for a quality commercial.
# Very dependent on placement.
# Very costly to buy time in medium to large markets: make sure your budget allows for television advertising.
# Difficult and costly to make changes.

Television advertising can be very draining on your budget. The cost of producing a commercial is only a small portion of the overall expense. Buying time on local or national networks will be the bulk of your cost factor, and like radio, you need to buy in blocks and repeat a commercial many times to the same target audience to be effective. You also need to carefully study demographics and ratings for various programs and time slots before committing to television advertising.

Establishing an image and accentuating the key selling points or benefits of your product or service through your script are the keys to a successful commercial. Entertainment and creativity are important factors, provided they do not detractfrom the product. Many advertisements are fun to watch, but movements later viewers cannot recall what product was being advertised.