TV Is a Great Research Tool to Grow Your Business
Want to improve sales? Attract new customers? Reposition your standard products or services? Increase your prices? If you don't want to make mistakes, you need research data. One of the best places to get this is by watching TV -- including the commercials. You and your whole business will benefit. It doesn’t matter if you own a product or service business or if your market is consumers or other businesses.
Actively watching TV requires analyzing what you see and hear. It helps owners and their management staff consider where the world is going, absorb what people say, and evaluate their relevance to how the business is run and the current products and services offered. The beauty of TV is that this research can be conducted on any channel and any program. If it's applied correctly, it can ramp up, grow, or scale a business faster and safer.
The Serta Example & Research
Consider the lowly mattress, the epitome of sleepy products. While other mattress brands still stress better sleep, Serta doesn't. This 75-year-old company took a commodity (with ads that focused on counting sheep) to something new. Its ads are now hip, sexy, and a reflection of people’s current real-life uses.
It didn’t wake up one day and decide to do this. Serta did its market research homework first and even shared the results with anyone who cared to look. According to the CARAVAN telephone omnibus survey sponsored by Serta, nearly 70 percent of Americans are turning to the bedroom for more than sleep. Findings also included that:
- 1 in 3 American adults surf the Web or check emails from bed.
- 60 percent of parents are watching television together in bed.
- Younger Americans (18-35 years old) are more likely to make phone calls, work, and watch television in bed when compared to all survey respondents.
Serta’s new commercials reflect this new reality: life as it is led. They are subtle but they reflect what their research told them. They show flashbacks of how life takes place on a mattress during all the stages of a person’s lifetime. One of them even has a couple AND a dog on the bed. Serta offers everyone a special place where life (including suggested sex) happens. The new Serta slogan supports this new positioning promising: "Whatever you do, we support you."
If you watch TV you will see this new reality and witness the birth of a new industry. The bedroom is a retreat that now needs espresso coffee makers, wine bars, beer taps, water features, fireplaces, and TVs in mirrors. Before (and sometimes still) you used to see people focusing on whether or not the room was big enough for a California king bed. If you're an architect, builder, remodeler, interior decorator, security company, insurance agent, produce products or services for the home, you have new opportunities. You can learn a lot from the research you get from watching TV -- including those darned commercials. It can help you increase the value of what you offer and find new ways to fit into this new reality, what I call "reality repositioning™".
How to Apply this to Your Business
No matter what business you are in or who your customers are, you can use the Serta example as a model. Here's how:
- Watch TV shows that are like the customers you have or want to acquire. See how they portray the world.
- Pay attention to commercials that are for complementary businesses to yours that advertise on those programs.
- Listen to see if the programs or commercials talk about their experience or research. If relevant, see if you can find out more by searching on the Internet for more information and by visiting their website.
- Notice who advertises on these programs and what and how they advertise. Are these similar to the benefits and features you talk about?
What are you looking for? To find the most current research and answers to these questions:
- What problem or opportunity are they addressing that is relevant to what you sell?
- How do they use your kind of product or service in different ways?
- How do they describe it to others?
- How do they adjust their business operations and staffing to take advantage of the opportunities and minimize the challenges?
There are at least five potential outcomes for making this effort. You can:
- Use the information and your analysis to strengthen your sales by improving your marketing message and branding.
- Identify possible ways to piggyback on their sales.
- Find a potential strategic alliance that you can follow up on.
- Begin to prepare your business for industry, market, technological, regulatory, or environmental changes.
- Re-evaluate how you are currently doing business including financial controls.
Caveat Emptor: Buyer Beware
Sometimes what looks good on TV and seems like the next new thing isn’t. The most famous example is Coca Cola's "New Coke" that was introduced in April 1985 and hastily removed from the shelves on July 11, 1985.
Last Step: Apply What You Learn to Your Whole Business
Apply what you learn to how you run your business, who you hire, what you spend your money and time on, as well as to what you market and sell. TV is a great way to grow your business by spending some quality time with it, not just advertising on it.
