Per Inquiry Advertising Crash Course

Per Inquiry Advertising is also known in the industry as PI advertising or, simply, PI. This means that instead of buying advertising time on a television or cable station you make a commission agreement that you will pay the station a flat amount for each order they generate. There are about 200 stations that take Per Inquiry advertising in spot or infomercial form. Spots are 30 seconds, 60 seconds and 120 seconds long. Infomercials are nearly a half hour - 28 minutes and 30 seconds. Infomercial products that you would recognize are Chuck Norris's Total Gym, George Foreman's Grill, Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer and so on. Spots run the gamut but the ones you are most likely to recognize are the music offers and Time Life's Trials of Life.

Television stations only consider Per Inquiry advertising as a last resort. They try to sell all of their advertising time first. Then, their unsold inventory may go to PI placement. For that reason, PI offers must be proven. The station is taking all the risk - if the commercial doesn't perform they are the ones that end up with a loss. You want to make sure you test your commercial as well because you don't want to invest in the project if your spot doesn't work.

Also - keep in mind that there are no campaigns out that there that market solely through PI. Per Inquiry advertising only generates about 15% of the total order volume. 85% of the volume comes from actually buying time. So for instance on the Chuck Norris Total Gym, the agency managing that campaign buys time on cable and broadcast stations all over the U.S. But at the same time it will pass the show to PI advertising agencies to seek additional placements on a PI basis. And in addition to buying time and Per Inquiry advertising, they will also use print media which is advertising in the newspaper or magazines. Per Inquiry advertising is just one aspect of the whole campaign.

The other thing to remember is that television advertising is not profitable. Lots of inventors think that if they can just get a commercial made advertising their widget they are going to make a lot of money. Not true.

First of all, making a spot or infomercial that works is very difficult. Out of every 40 commercials that get produced - only 1 will work. Those are numbers from the pros. You can imagine what the ratio of success is if you�re trying to put this together on your own or with a local production studio. Secondly, even if your commercial works it is still unlikely that it will make a profit. 80% of the spots and infomercials out there are just breaking even. Breaking even is actually their goal. They are trying to advertise their product and build brand awareness so that when they visit the buyers at Wal-Mart they will have a recognized product that Wal-Mart wants to carry in its stores. Television advertising is a stepping stone to retail. In the U.S. you will sell 10% of your product on television and 90% via retail. So retail is the ultimate goal.

Can you get to retail on your own? That honestly depends on your background and what you've done in the past. Chances are that you will need to joint venture with a company that has an established retail arm but that's something to worry about later. First, we need a successful spot or infomercial to use in your Per Inquiry advertising campaign.