Can DRTV Work for You?
A few years ago at the catalog conference, I got to listen to that year’s keynoter, Richard Thalheimer from The Sharper Image, discuss how he started out. Like so many other entrepreneurs in our industry, he started with one product advertised in a magazine. From there, he built his business.
I loved listening to his classic fairy-tale beginning. He started out with a great product that was unusual in nature and not readily available anywhere else.
Fast forward a few years and The Sharper Image team developed the Ionic Breeze air purifier. The Sharper Image managers found they had a winning product on their hands. So they decided to test it on TV and it became a winner, taking The Sharper Image to new sales levels, driving both sales and new customer acquisitions. The Ionic Breeze air purifier became a must-have product.
But eventually, as with all things, a hit product runs its natural course. And despite many brand extensions, The Sharper Image team couldn’t find another new product — and revenue-driver — to match its success. The Ionic Breeze proved to be the company’s triumph and its downfall.
Direct response TV (DRTV) can be the most powerful direct marketing channel any business can use. I’ve watched and worked for a number of companies where DRTV has made them a category leader overnight.
But there’s a dark side to DRTV, which I’ve seen many times over. Incredible success, then, when a company can’t back it up with something new and fresh to sustain growth, it becomes a company’s downfall. Despite the fact that The Sharper Image has hundreds of products, it succumbed to its own success. In essence, the now near-bankrupt company became a one-hit wonder.
DRTV can make you a lot of money, but it can also bury you if you fail to follow through on initial success. You’ve been warned!
Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success.
After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth.
Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.
Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.
