41. TV and OTT Advertising in Digital Strategies

 In the final episode of the Build, Grow, Dominate series, Janet and Caitlyn dive into how home improvement contractors can leverage TV and OTT (Over-the-Top) advertising to supercharge their brand presence. From the basics of how these platforms differ to tactical tips on creative production, tracking ROI, and real-world success stories—this episode breaks down how traditional and streaming ads fit into a modern, high-performing digital marketing strategy.

Whether you're already investing in digital or just stepping into video ads, this episode will help you align your messaging, amplify your reach, and make every ad dollar work harder. Learn how to connect the dots between your streaming campaigns and your website traffic, and why homeowners may already think you’re “on TV”—even if you’re just on YouTube.

Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.

Transcript

Speaker 01: 0:01

Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors. in the home improvement industry. In part one, we'll cover the essentials from startup to your first 5 million. In part two, we're shifting gears to focus on what it takes to scale your business to a successful exit and or how to dominate your market. Now let's get into it. Hey, I'm Janet, the founder here at Fat Cat Strategies. And today I am joined by the lovely and talented Caitlin Noble, who is not only my colleague, my coworker, and my friend, but I'm happy to say that she is also the co-owner of Fat Cat Strategies. Yes, what an intro. I, Caitlin, as Janet mentioned, also the head of client services, wears many hats. So many hats. Alongside. Like you have 14 hats. I, and so my guns beat off the 14. Janet, it's Thursday, Monday. We are going to dive into the last gun to stone of this two-part series of Build, Grow, Dominate. Let's tell the listeners what we're diving into. Yeah, that's right. It's the last episode in Build, Grow, Dominate, the series for home improvement contractors who want to do what they want to do. They want to build, grow, and dominate. Okay, and so today we are talking about TV and OTT advertising. That's right. If you're a contractor who's already put some marketing presence in your community to your community you're doing a bunch of great things and now you're focused on skill and optimizing this episode is for you we're talking about how to make traditional streaming media a powerful part of your digital web plan so let's break it down starting off the basics what is the difference between two TV and OTT advertising. Wow. That was a lot of T's. As long as we're going out with the bang. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the real deal here. You're getting an unvarnished Janet and Caitlin. Okay, so what is the difference between TV and OTT? Traditional TV ads, you know these. They've been on the air since what? The beginning. Right up to World War II. So they've been around for a while. These are commercials on broadcast or cable television, and they are great for reaching a broad audience and creating a big presence in your market. But if you're listening to this and you're thinking like, That ain't for me because I'm going to have to go through my local ABC or NBC affiliate or I'm going to have to talk to the local, you know, spectrum cable ad sales rep. Who's a joy. Who's a joy. I'd like the best part of your day when those ad sales reps come into your office and try to strong arm you into something. Yeah. Good Lord.

Unknown: 3:17

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 3:17

So if you're thinking TV ain't for me, well, maybe OTT is. Yeah, OTT. We're over-the-top dads who are served through streaming platforms. But to show you platforms, Hulu, YouTube TV, Amazon Prime Video. Those are all streaming platforms. And the cool part about OTT is that it offers targeted advertising using data to serve your message to the right people. Yeah, it's like the precision. Well, it's not even like it. It is. It is, yeah. You mentioned Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Prime. I mean, there's others like... They've got all these crazy names like 2B, Pluto and stuff like that. All of that is streaming and it's advertiser supported. And with OTT, with the right platform and with the right agency, your ad can be in somebody's living room, but it could be wildly targeted just to the households that you want to market to. Yeah. So opposite of the traditional. Yeah. So with traditional TV, when you get that like glorious, generous, Joy of a person that is the local TV ad sales rep who does take no for an answer and who will leave your office and not come back. four times in the next six weeks with donuts and pins and flowers. And then you sign a year-long TD contract. Yeah. You remember that person. Yeah. TV ad sales. And here Ryan adds to the price is right. To the price is right at like 10 a.m. on some bullshit channel. OTT is kind of the opposite of that. Yes. So you get all the benefits of TV without having to deal with that local ad sales regret. Yeah, so I'll talk about the benefits. Like, so, because why should a home improvement clinic appear about OTT? In one word, it is breach. So, to back it up, TV, like we said, you're going to get in front of a huge audience. You're paid to get in front of that huge audience. The timing, et cetera, all of that. I mean, it could be me home from maternity leave watching, you know, Family feud. What today? Who sees your ads? Or it could be somebody who's, you know, 65 and retired. 65 and retired. But they're in your target zip codes. They're in your zip codes. OTT lets you be more precise, acting in the chin, turning your face on viewing habits, your interests, and as Janet mentioned, using the codes. So, yeah. So when you're going to start to see your business on TV or if you're using your favorite streaming app, That's it. A little trust. I mean, we just talked on our last episode about multi-channel marketing. I mean, the more that you can establish throughout how other people are consuming content and entertainment. Yes. The more serious of a player you're going to be. So I'll just interject a little story. And Caitlin, you know the story because you were on the call. I saw you. We were talking to a contractor in Kansas City, Missouri last week, who's a dear friend of Fat Cat and has built an amazing business. And he is using YouTube ads. So what he's done is he's, you know, captured a bunch of video footage that gets recycled into all kinds of ads and social. But then they are running those ads on YouTube TV, which people are now using YouTube as one of the streaming apps on their big old television in their living room. And so our friend out in Kansas City told us, he was like, you know, I was getting these calls and I was going on these appointments and I was, you know, doing the sales guy thing and how'd you hear about us? And they'd say, well, I saw you on TV. I And it took him a while because he in his mind was not thinking that his digital ads were quote unquote TV ads. Right. kind of an old school TV ad on the local ABC affiliate before the price is right. The homeowner is not making this distinction. But what we've found is that sometimes we as agencies or the contractors can think, well, I'm running these digital ads. Well, the homeowner thinks you're on TV. And so our friend out in Kansas City said, he's like, for a while, I thought people were crazy. And then I had friends tell me, hey, I saw your TV ad. And they finally made the connection like, oh, They're talking about my YouTube ads. Exactly. But people call them... TV. Largely, like, TV ads. Yes. So... So, Caitlin, tell us, like, what are some of the things that people listening need to do if they're thinking about running OTT or streaming? Yeah. Honestly, it's an actor. That is the role that that person plays. They're not the sales manager. They're not the general manager. They're an actor that becomes the brand spokesperson for that one-day bath company in that market. And they're on every stig and ad. Perfect. That is what we call similar visual, similar tone, brand consistency. Exactly. And so that's the tactical aspect. You only use CTA and FFT to drag traffic to your website or social platforms. Yep. So you need to think about a strong CTA. What's a CTA? That's a call to action. What is your CTA going to be? Is it going to be something like visit our website for exclusive offers, book your consultation, go to our website to download a free, you know, color guide on this year's new, um, citing profiles and citing colors or you've got a new window product and you've got some sort of downloadable guide or video series on how it works. That's going to be your CTA that you are offering on your OTT streaming commercial. Then when you direct visitors to go get that thing off of your website, you're going to use a trackable URL or a promo code or a QR code so that you can tie back that conversion on your website that was driven to your website by that OTT ad. Exactly. And, right gosh, if you're already spending the money to run these types of ads, you have to follow up. If someone visits your site after they've watched your ad, please make sure that Your digital presence picks up the baton and runs with it. Through retargeting ads, through email marketing, through text messages, you've got to keep the conversation going. Keep your brand in front of you. Yeah, and you know, I'll kind of tag onto this. There's just so many great technology partners that Fat Cat has developed that if you're talking about continuing that conversation um you know we've we've done an episode with blazio um to be called Apex Chat. So let's say your OTT ad runs on a streaming platform. Somebody goes to your website and maybe they don't want to fill out a form, but there's a chat bot that pops up. And I actually use the wrong word. It's not a bot because with Blasio, you can have chat on your website that is manned by live human beings. And they're going to be able to engage with that person while they're sitting in their Lazy Boy with the laptop on their lap or their iPad on their lap or their phone. And so then you're Yeah, that's amazing. Oh, yeah. Again, it's technology, but to compliment what you're doing. Compliment what you're doing and really take some of the heavy lifting off of your plate. I think that's fantastic. And continue that engagement. Yeah. And then you come in the next morning, you've got three new appointments booked. Graze. Okay. So we've run into this time and time again. It is quite interesting. often very difficult to track the data coming from television commercials. You know, it's been a conversation we've had for years, like, okay, we'll win the Dave on. Like, all right, let's build your Google AdWords. Let's see if there's a spike in your website traffic during that hour of the day that you had multiple ads running. OTT is going to give you access to tons of tech apps. You can see who's what, how long they engage, and whether they click through your website or not. It's so amazing. Yes. And the magic happens when you combine this with your digital analytics to get the full picture, or you combine it with something like WhatConverts that's going to do that lead source attribution. Absolutely. So, you know, moving on, kind of going through our tips here. Okay. We wanted to touch on this idea of cross-platform synergy. Another word. So yeah, we're dropping all the buzzwords here. So what you really want to do is make it a full circle moment. Caitlin, explain to people what we mean by that. Yeah, this is something, I mean, if you're producing, if somebody is producing television ads, they are neighbors. I assume you're neighbors and once there's some Contract. Contract that says they're not yours. But you should negotiate where you get the creative from any commercials that are shot. It's your brand. It's your... You want those files. Yes, it's your files. So we're shaking those ads and we're pushing them through social media. We're publishing them to your YouTube channel. We're then... putting that same commercial within an email campaign, or we're dropping a snippet of that commercial onto a PPC landing page to get more mileage out of that creative and create that cohesive experience. Right. So if you're going to go through the effort and energy to create this asset, which is this, you know, piece of video.

Unknown: 15:00

Yeah.

Speaker 01: 15:00

Yeah, exactly. There's so many freelancers out there in your market that can help you really capture some high quality video. And again, I'm going to go back to a friend of Fat Cat, a friend of the show that we've got out in Kansas City is running an amazing siding business out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do it the right way. Do it the right way. Yeah. Invest in quality production, even if you're going the OTT route and you're maybe bypassing what is a traditional television studio approach. And if you had somebody who's camera shy or you're a small business thinking about this. And I mean, I'm the first to say that. Not the first to say, actually, but AI is so powerful. There are AI tools out there that you can plug in a script, and you will keep a low rate at the content that comes to affect it. The video content. Yeah, the video content that can be used to promote your company. Yeah. All types of ways to spend that budget. Speeds into the budget, though. You've got to track your ROI on this. Monitor your cost per lead from each channel. And you've got to optimize it from here. You play just to see if it's even working. So, yeah. So, you know, we kind of talked a little bit of smack about traditional TV. But if you are still running traditional ads through local affiliates. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Tracking, tracking, tracking, so you can move your money to the right place. A quick case study, an example of one of our clients, a home improvement contractor at the Southeast. They ran a seasonal campaign across TV and OTT to promote energy-efficient window replacements. Yeah, and they supported it with a Google ad campaign and a landing page offering a special incentive. So the landing page is on the website, the Google ads are on the Google ad platform, and the commercial is on streaming and traditional TV. So what was the result? It was a major lift in site traffic, a lower cost per lead than expected, and a ton of new leads and new customers in the pipeline. Amazing. And you've been gone to all the same dealers to follow back up with those business. And they did. So to wrap it all up, OTT and TV advertising aren't just nice-to-haves anymore. They're powerful tools for scaling contractors who are ready to dominate their targets. So combine that old-school credibility that you're going to get from TV advertising And radio, honestly. Yeah. With modern digital strategy and tactics, and you will be unstoppable. Absolutely. Gosh, wow. Well, that wraps up today's episode. And it also marks the end of our part two in our Build, Grow, Dominate series. Now, we have covered a lot from the power of SEO and PPC to integrating digital strategies with traditional media like radio, TV, and now OTT. If you're ready to level up your marketing efforts So until then, keep going this far. Thank you.

Speaker 00: 19:48

Digital marketing for contractors is created by Fat Cat Strategies. For more information, visit fatcatstrategies.com.