Post Mortem of an Infomercial Script – What’s Wrong and How to Make it Better

If you, or someone you know, has ever had a desire, or a need to write an infomercial script, whether you are an independent writer, a producer or production company who may be called upon from time to time to write and/or produce an infomercial, you might find this blog posting of interest.

In this instance, I was hired by a production company to do a script review/critique of an infomercial they were considering producing.  They knew there was something wrong with the script, but couldn’t define it better or be more specific than that. “Fix it up” was the direction. And so, the link provided will take you to a 3-page script review/critique articulating  the various problems and issues with the presentation of the material.  Without supplying the full 19 pages of the company’s draft of the script, I think the gist of the problems and issues will be quite clear. Moreover, the critiques and observations  can be useful to those who have an interest in producing long-form informercials – 30 minutes shows.

Infomercial_ScriptCritique_Final – this link will take you to the three-page script critique

Just as in any profession, there is much to know and learn to be proficient, if not expert at one’s craft. Just as any sport requires extensive practice and just as any athlete also knows that the best way to get better at something is not only “doing it” but also learning by seeing others who perform sub par. Improvement comes from seeing both what is good, and what is not so good and what it takes to make it, or something, or someone, better.

This script review address some of the fundamental, if not critical infomercial marketing conventions, formulas and formats and should prove to be both informative and revealing.  This three-page script critique will be an eye opener for anyone who is ready to engage in one of the most sophisticated forms of mass marketing — the  writing and production of an infomercial.  Remember, it all starts with the script. And that’s just where we will begin, with a review of the script.

Infomercial_ScriptCritique_Final- link takes you to three-page script critique

I hope you find this information helpful as the review discusses in detail certain fundamental formulas and conventions as it applies to style, format, marketing and sales technique for this most fascinating and possibly the most aggressive of all direct response marketing  – Long Form Infomercial Marketing and Production.  Electronic/Television direct response marketing also takes on short form versions — from sixty second spots to two-minute spots. In another blog I’ll post other examples and samples of these various other short form direct response television marketing formats.

Infomercial_ScriptCritique_Final- link to three-page script critique

Newsletters: “old school” vs “new school” – “hard copy” vs. “electronic” – which rules? Both Rock.

Newsletters – Turn “Cold-Calling” into “Warm-Calling”

One of the most cost effective ways to market and promote your company is a newsletter. (Videos are becoming increasingly important too, but that’s another blog posting.)   Newsletters today, however, are different than they were, say about 10 years or so ago. “Back in the day,” as they say, newsletters were “printed documents” of varying sizes that were mailed via the U.S. Post office, when stamps were 22 cents or thereabouts.  Yes, traditional newsletters still make sense, but for the most part, those printing, folding, stamping and postal mailing days are long gone. The “game changer” – for life, and pretty much everything else on the planet – the Internet. While “hard copy” newsletters still have tremendous merit, there are various ways to produce a newsletter for internet distribution as well.   Let’s talk first just a little bit about the “value” of the newsletter, conceptually speaking as an important sales, marketing and promotional tool for your company.

The Right Reason to Contact Your Customers and Prospects

In sales, it’s always best to find the right reason, (or, said another way, the right excuse) to contact and stay in touch with your prospects and customers. Let’s face it, a sales call is a sales call. Regardless of the product or service you offer, when you pick up the phone to call your prospect there are two goals you are striving to achieve – getting in the door for an appointment, or depending upon your product/service, being able to sell them directly over the phone. Here’s the problem though. How often do you really get a “live” person on the phone these days unless you already know that person? Not often. It can sometimes take weeks, months or even years to nurture a prospect and actually close a deal. The question is, what are you doing during this “sales courtship process” to advance your selling cycle? The answer:  a Newsletter?

Your Newsletter is a Great Ice-Breaker

A newsletter is a great ice breaker.  (Note: yes, there are numerous other things that you can and should be doing to stay in touch with your customers/prospects – whitepapers, videos, PowerPoint’s, podcasts, press releases, blog postings/updates, social media outreach, news articles stories written about you or your company, etc.  – which by the way, can all be included in a newsletter and of course emailed to your prospect/customer).  Most important however, a newsletter gives you an opportunity to promote and feature the good, new and interesting things that your company is doing.

By sending out a newsletter chock full of info about “new  products and/or services,” the company’s involvement in various activities – business, civic and otherwise, including any ground-breaking news or significant achievements by either personnel or company successes, you are not “hard-selling” your prospect, you are “soft-selling them.” This approach tacitly demonstrates a) your company’s successes and b) what they are missing out by NOT using your product or service (YET).  There is no “selling” pressure.

Seven Solid Reasons to Feature Your Client Successes in Your Newsletter

 

• People love to see their names and faces in print. (And today, this definitely even includes “the internet” – why do you think Facebook is so successful?)

• People love to see news stories about themselves or their company.

• Use the newsletter as a forum to feature clients that use your company’s product or service.

• Include a picture about them in an “article you write” about how your product or service helped to “improve or enhance a situation or circumstance” for that client.”

• Let your clients be your sales people, trumpet their success, let them spread the enthusiasm for “what you’ve done for them” and watch the phone ring.

• Newsletters have great shelf life – whether hard-copy or “forward to a friend”

they are frequently passed from one person to another and can be included along with your other sales and marketing materials.

• Flexible, adaptable, modifiable, and always customized, newsletters do more than carry your company message, they practically become a living and breathing sales person for you and your company.

Hard Copy Newsletter vs. Electronic Newsletters

There remains definite value in producing newsletters in hard copy. In this form it can “lay around” someone’s desk for days, weeks, sometimes months even. If well done you get the added-value of the “pass along” readership from the original recipient, who might say something like “Gee, (insert the name of your favorite person you’d be handing the newsletter to) why don’tcha take a look at this very (insert the adjective you’d like to use — cool, nice, informative, pithy, provocative, well written newsletter”). Naturally, anyone of these pass-along-remarks is a very good thing as someone is handing your newsletter to someone else.

Electronic Newsletters

Today’s newsletters however are now often produced in electronic versions using templates like the popular Constant Contact or Mail Chimp.  The beauty of electronic newsletters, in addition to their cost-effectiveness compared to “hard copy is a number of extremely useful, informative and valuable features. Tops among these are:

ü  how many people actually opened your email,

ü  how many people actually read your email,  and

ü  the “forward to a friend” feature – (this “viral” component of these mailings is in fact the secret DNA of email marketing)

In addition to these useful metrics, the other single extremely valuable marketing aspect of an electronic newsletter is the “hyperlink” function. The ability to “send people” to another place – presumably on your own website that further demonstrates or reinforces a particular point, such as in a case study or some other interesting success story is very powerful. Any time you can provide additional support in the way of case studies, or examples, etc., significantly enhances credibility.

The Best of Both Worlds – “Leverage Marketing”

The only thing better than one newsletter is two newsletters, especially using the same exact content. This marketing technique employs the concept of “leverage marketing” which is the practice of creating marketing materials that can be used in various ways for myriad purposes.  In the example provided here ( NewsLetters_BlogPost_Artwork )  the content of these newsletters, as in the case of Eurorient, was used for both “traditional U.S. postal mail” as well as electronically as a PDF.   The newsletter for WestPark Capital was produced using Constant Contact as an electronic mailer that contained numerous links to other stories and articles pertinent to the company and its activities in the marketplace at that time. And, as far as “old school” goes, the final newsletter, “The Lorraine Report” was produced as a postal mailer and then doubled as an electronic PDF document.  Used with great success, you’ll notice that in “The Lorraine Report” newsletter/mailer a “response” form was included, employing “direct response techniques” utilizing a “premium” as part of the offer to increase prospect response.

NewsLetters_BlogPost_Artwork

Going Back to the Well

Circling back to the concept of “leverage marketing” – ALL of the content created in each of these newsletters was prior produced marketing material by The Bamboo Agency that was recycled on a timely basis to prospects and customers. Don’t let earlier produced marketing materials go by the wayside; there are ample opportunities to find ways to repurpose your creative efforts. Newsletters powerfully deliver the message you need for the impact you want.  Whether it’s on the desk, in the hands, or on the computer screen of your prospects and customers, your newsletter is sure to help you be exactly where you need to be – at the fingertips or on the mind of your prospects and customers.

NewsLetters_BlogPost_Artwork

PS:  Oh, and by the way, feel free to send this blog post to a co-worker (maybe even someone in marketing) —  or simply “Like It’ and “Forward to a Friend” —  either works.

“Turning Holiday Cheer into Holiday Cash”

Let’s face it, the “Holiday Season” (technically from Thanksgiving through to New Year)  has become inextricably mixed with sentimental expressions of good tidings, good cheer, the warmth of a crackling fireplace, a twinkling Christmas Tree or Chanukah-Bush, and inevitably spending time with family and friends. But annually, from a commercial perspective, this end-of-year ritual has also become the most anticipated, if not the most important time for retailers (and just about anyone else in business) to make the cash registers ring.  As marketers, naturally we are always looking for ways to connect with our customers and prospects – to promote our products and services – and the holiday season represents one more great opportunity to do just that.

“Turning Pain into Gain”: Making Your Message Fun

In the project example provided below, a leading Chiropractic Physician in Nashville, Tennessee wanted to reach out to patients to produce a Holiday Christmas card for the practice – to wish them well, thanking them for their patronage and “hoping to see them in the New Year.”  Pretty typical stuff, in fact, these types of things (sales and marketing propaganda) are generally – yawn – ho hum and trashed immediately without ever giving them a second thought. That is, until you introduce humor in to the equation.  Funny works. Funny sells. Funny is memorable. Funny gets people to put their guard down. And when you combine funny without a hard sales close, people don’t feel pressured. Your customers/prospects will remember you and your message and use you when the need for your product/service arises, whether it is today, next week, next month, or even later. You’ll be remembered.

The Challenge

The challenge of course to any advertising or marketing agency is to produce something that truly stands out beyond all the clutter. (That’s always the goal and that’s always what agencies say they do, or will do, for their clients, right? – “cutting through the clutter” – it’s become a cliché, hasn’t it?)  Consumers are bombarded with a dizzying array of marketing messages at every turn during the countdown to New Year. So, aside from an insane “Black Friday” discount or the ridiculous reduced rates of “Cyber Monday,” what can you do to monetize and maximize these very merry holidays?

The Work

Here’s just one example of marketing merry-making that didn’t involve any elves.  The Bamboo Agency not only created a fun and funny Holiday Card, (see the link below) but it also produced a Press Release for the medical practice distributed to the news media that developed a unique and interesting “commercial mainstream news media message” positioned in the form of “helpful medical hints consumers can use to get them through the pain and drudgery of holiday shopping.”

The agency framed the news release with the following headline:

Correct Shopping Posture

A Dozen Medical Stocking Stuffers to Get You through the Holidays Pain-Free

Don’t Let Shopping put a Crimp in Your Christmas, Or your Back

The agency, in collaboration with the Dr. came up with a list, a 12 point “best practices approach” consumers could follow to “shop smart without hurting themselves.”  This unique marketing approach is a perfect tie-in to capitalize on the “Holiday Season” while promoting the Doctor’s name, brand and practice and providing him as an “expert source” to the local media.  The Press Release went on, in a humorous tongue-in-cheek manner, to discuss the most common and typical scenarios most families endure while a) shopping for loved ones and b) spending time at home with family and friends.

Leverage the Material

It’s always ideal, if not smart, not to mention creatively cost-effective, to create marketing materials that can be further leveraged and repurposed for multiple other uses. In this case, while the agency was contracted to create a holiday greeting card, it was through consultation with client and creative expansion on the general “greeting card concept” that led to the agencies evolution of the “12 smart shopping tips” idea. This enabled agency and client to leverage the one piece of work for other purposes, such as the News Media Press Release. The material was used in various other ways:

a)      A hard-copy greeting card

b)      An electronic version of the greeting card

c)      The Greeting Card posted to the Doctor’s website

d)      The Greeting Card posted to all social media

e)      A Press Release

f)       The Press Release Posted to the Website

So, What’s our Gift?

While we all love the holidays for all the reasons that bring us together to see our work colleagues get snockered on eggnog at the company Christmas party and the ruination of one more promising career, spending special time with our dysfunctional families and annoying relatives we thankfully have to see only one time a year, we, as marketers can be grateful that we have just one more trigger event that gives us the opportunity to create and produce interesting, fun, satisfying and successful creative work — and that’s the greatest gift we as “creatives” can give to our clients.

Strive to Make Merry Holiday Marketing Messages – Click Here to See Release and Holiday Card