All the information you need to Start A Dog Daycare

 Television Advertising for a Dog Daycare

Effectively Adverting Your Dog Daycare Through Television

Television is a great way to advertise your Dog Daycare. The visual impact of video has the ability to capture and hold the audience—more so than the static mediums of print or audio media.  Nothing will grab attention faster than a video of 20 or 30 dogs having the time of their lives playing and having fun while giving and receiving kisses and hugs interacting with either you or your staff.  As a new Dog Daycare facility to the area you may receive numerous stories run by various local television stations  all for free because dog daycare is interesting to their viewers. Without fail you will shortly thereafter be inundated with calls and walk ins that saw you on TV.  Your website will also register an unusually high number of hits during these times as well (As long as you make sure the website appears in all advertising and in any articles or stories about you regardless of which advertising medium is used).

The disadvantages of Television Advertising For A Dog Daycare

Although television advertising is highly effective at getting the attention of potential customers, there is one huge disadvantage to advertising on television, and that is cost. When determining what it cost of television advertising there are two items that you need to take into consideration:

(1) The cost of producing the commercial

(2) The cost of actually getting it on Air

The average cost to produce and air a national 30 second commercial is estimated to be around $350,000. This is probably why even the biggest Dog Daycare Franchise has no national advertising campaign. Don’t be totally discouraged yet as you probably won't be advertising nationally for the first few years, so this does not apply to you. As a small business there is no possible way you can afford an investment of $350,000 for a single commercial, however you can get good quality television commercials produced for as little as $1000 if you look in the right places.

 One thing to keep in mind is that your local television sales representative is a salesman, not your friend. They work on commission so the more they sell the more they make and they will use a variety of techniques to get you to spend advertising dollars with their station. The most popular and most commonly used technique is that they will offer to produce the commercial for you at a discounted price or even for free if you sign a contract to advertise on their station for a set amount of time. The end result is that will have a poor quality commercial that could potentially hurt business more than help by giving your potential clients the impression that your facility is cheap or dated.

 For television sales representatives and television stations alike it’s about volume and turn over, so they are not going to spend a lot of time making sure your commercial is of the highest quality. They need to get it done, and done quickly so they can start spending your advertising dollars airing it. They will also prey on your inexperience as you probably have no idea what essential elements need to be included in a television spot to make it successful. This can be avoided by spending a little money on an outside advertising agency that actually works for you not for themselves.  Go to your local Yellow Pages and find small production agencies willing to produce a commercial on a budget you can afford.

Getting Your Ad on the Air

The second cost is actually getting your commercial aired, and this depends on the popularity of the station as well as the popularity of the program you want your ad to appear during. Television is sold in 30 second blocks, your average half hour show has 22 minutes of program and eight minutes of commercials further divided into 6 minutes for national advertising and 2 minutes for local advertising.  You will find advertising on your local stations is the most cost effective method of reaching potential customers located in the same area as your business.

On average you could purchase a 30 second block of time on a local station for as little as $5 per 1000 viewers. This could translate into a cost of less than $100 per commercial slot depending upon the reach of your local television station or it can be considerably cheaper for off-hours programming. However, remember that the majority of people watching TV at 3 a.m. in the morning on a Wednesday probably don’t have a job and can’t afford your services anyway.

The other thing that you need to know is that like radio, with television frequency sells. Therefore, even though you may get a 30 second television spot for $100 you are going to have to buy a lot more than one commercial if you want any response at all. This would mean 2-3 times a day for a week which could cost a few thousand dollars upwards of tens of thousands of dollars. Lastly, television like radio is non retrievable and unless your potential client just happens to be recording a program during which your commercial airs, once its gone, it’s gone.
 

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