Sponsored Content WEBINAR: ELECTION 2008: E-mail Tips from a Political Insider   WEBINAR: Becoming the Illusionist: The Magic of Using "Brand" to Drive Response without Results Disappearing in the Process   WEBINAR: Score and Win Through Cooperation   TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Holiday's are prime-time for email marketing - maximize your ROI by getting to the inbox   ON DEMAND WEBINAR--MASTER CLASS: High Performance Online and Off-line Strategies for Large Scale Customer Acquisition   FREE WHITE PAPER - Direct Mail and the Internet Find any supplier you need - agencies, CRM, fulfillment, lists, e-commerce, paper, printers, telemarketing, and more. Featured Categories Lists and Data Telemarketing Database Marketing E-commerce Web Marketing Agency & Creative Services Print, Production & Paper Lists and Data Processing :: view all categories Get free access to more than 50,000 list data cards - one of the most comprehensive databases in the industry. >> Search Now DIRECT Buzz Blog Webinars Buyer's Guide Calculators JobZone ListFinder Promo Calendar Research Store E-Newsletters Print Magazine This Month in Direct Magazine Deal With It Direct had a full house for this year's list roundtable. Considering all the additional responsibilities on brokers' plates, that's impressive... See Full July Issue

Flip on the TV late at night and take a look at the infomercials vying for your attention across the cable spectrum.

Many of the spots look like they're designed mainly to entertain viewers. And this has its appeal, especially since there might eventually be a shortage of original programming thanks to the television writers' strike under way at deadline.

But wait a minute…what about the sale? Aren't infomercials supposed to inform viewers about a product and then convince them to buy? That's the “revolutionary” tack Shark Euro-Pro took with a 30-minute spot for the Shark Steam Mop that began airing in June.

The gambit paid off. The ad has turned out to be the most successful infomercial in the company's six years' experience with the medium, resulting in online response rates of 32% to 33%, more than twice the previous Internet average response of 12% to 15%.

“A lot of infomercials have become more programming and entertainment,” says Paul Soltoff, CEO of multichannel marketing firm SendTec, which produced the spot. “What we tried to do was focus on what the product does well, which is clean floors.”

Since the product solves a problem — dirty floors — Shark put the spotlight on exactly that function, using demonstrations to show how the Steam Mop can be used, and featuring testimonials from satisfied customers.

“Everything was about demonstrating value,” he says.

Infomercials are such a good format for products like the Steam Mop because the product solves a problem that anybody can relate to, notes Jeff Frankel, vice president for international and direct-to-consumer sales at Newton, MA-based Shark Euro-Pro. “It's extremely demonstrable. And the price point — $79.80 at retail — means it needs more than a one- or two-minute spot.”

The target customer is very broad. “If you have a house or an apartment, I think the building codes require you to have a floor,” he joked. “And as long as you have a floor, at some point you're going to need a product like this.”

The roots of the company go back 120 years to Poland, where it sold sewing machines. Until 10 or so years ago Shark Euro-Pro products were sold only in Canada. Then it began to offer products in the United States via Home Shopping Network and the Spiegel and Fingerhut catalogs. In summer 2001 Shark started to do infomercials.

“That really helped us explode into retail,” Frankel says. The company currently does about $450 million in sales annually, over 90% at retail.

The infomercial included two calls to action: a URL (www.sharksteammop.com) and an 800 number. Over the last seven years SendTec has tracked the change in infomercial order activity and — no surprise — seen more and more orders shift online. Ten years ago all orders came in by phone, according to Soltoff. Now 30% to 50% of consumers go to the URL featured on television.

“There's definitely a shift. It establishes that consumers are in control. They're deciding where they want to engage and when they want to make a purchase.” Soltoff adds that the economic model is obviously better for marketers because there's no cost if consumers are driven online.

The infomercial is fueling branded keyword searches as well. Consumers often retain a branded word around the product or category and then go to a search engine rather than write down the URL featured on air. Popular keywords in various combinations were the obvious, “Shark” and “steam mop.” The impact of search on order activity is almost equal to the URL.

“It really is a fundamental change in the way you have to account for your metrics and tie everything back to the advertising spend,” Soltoff says. “If you're a media buyer trying to determine whether a daypart is successful or it isn't, you need to be able to count the direct orders attributable to the orders for that airing to decide whether you should buy more of that media or cancel.” No outside media other than television is used to drive site activity.

Frankel indicates there's potential for future sales to existing customers since the product requires steam-activated pads that have to be replaced. The company also plans to introduce lightweight vacuums which might appeal to Steam Mop customers. E-mail, online promotions and package inserts are used for cross-selling and upselling.

The cost of media is a big factor when making a successful infomercial, according to Paul Soltoff, CEO of St. Petersburg, FL-based SendTec.

In the mid-1980s and early 1990s a half-hour of time on a major cable network like the Discovery Channel or the Family Channel in a preferred time slot such as Saturday morning could be bought for about $4,500, he says. Today that same 30-minute block could run $30,000, $40,000 or even $50,000.

“That's 15 times what it cost 15 years ago,” Soltoff notes. “And that's resulted in many of the pure-play infomercial companies going out of business, because they were originally front-end-driven companies and could offset their major expense, which was media. Back then, it cost much less to create a successful and profitable infomercial business.”

Soltoff doesn't believe the political season will have much of an impact on infomercial media availability. But other factors will affect the business.

“The Internet has taken a lot of eyeballs away,” he says. And you've got DVRs, which allow consumers to skip commercials. Plus, there's a general apathy from consumers. Infomercials don't have the novelty they once did.”

Infomercials simply have smaller buckets of opportunity in which to prevail. “Today it's a difficult channel to navigate in successfully.”
— BNV

For more articles on integration, go to http://directmag.com/disciplines/integration/.