How Startups Can Advertise Smartly with Programmatic TV Television is still the most relevant medium for building a brand and establishing consumer connect

It's a great time to be a startup in the country. With the rollout of GST, the Make in India thrust, and policies around Ease of Doing business, startups and SMEs are gearing up to expand deeper and wider in existing markets and take their products and services to new geographies.

As startups will drive the growth story for India in the days to come, it is important for them to make their presence felt in the market through effective advertising among the consumer groups that matter.

With the advent of digital and social media and experiential marketing, there are many ways for brands to reach their target consumers today.These new forms of media are no doubt cheap and easy to use, but trends indicate that marketers, big or small, will never do away with TV advertising. Television is still the most relevant medium for building a brand and establishing meaningful consumer connect, whether it is a small player or a large one.

The Power of TV: Simple, Efficient and Transparent

Although popular, the traditional method of buying TV media is cumbersome and complex. Media planners have to send requests for proposals, order for ad insertions and wait for confirmations. This is usually done through a flurry of emails, faxes and spreadsheets. This is extremely laborious and stressful, especially when there is a time constraint.

What startups require is a simple technology tool that will simplify and automate the manual workflow related to media buying and save a lot of time and effort. This is where Programmatic TV (PTV)comes into the picture. It is a state-of-the-art technology that helps marketers reach their target groups in a faster, simpler and more efficient manner and ensure they remain profitable in a competitive environment.

Programmatic Technology isalready well accepted in the global digital media buying and it has just entered the traditional television space with the promise of simplicity, efficiency and optimisation.

What PTV does is true to the spirit of start-ups. It is a B2B tool that brings buyers and sellers of media time on to a common marketplace, making the media buying process simpler and more efficient.

This technology is an automated platform that does away with the manual processes of TV ad buying. Right from matching target groupsand selecting channels to creating a media plan and coordinating with sellers, everything is automated. PTV offers an easy-to-use dashboard that enables tracking of the campaign's performance against advertiser's expectations.

With PTV,buying and scheduling of advertisements happens in an open and transparent manner. What you see is what you get and pay for. This automatically translates into greater accountability of television ad campaigns.

Dynamic Audience Buying

PTV offers an efficient platform to buy audience based on audience profile and behaviour and not merely on a hunch based on a TV show's popularity. For instance, if you are a women's fashion accessories retailer looking to targeting working women in tier 2 towns, you can reach this subset through any of the TV channels that your target group is watching. Your target group may not necessarily be watching the most popular channelor showthat the viewers in tier 1 cities or metros are watching.

So, why should you waste your money and effort by playing your ad on the most-watched show, if your target customer is not watching it? You would rather put your money on a channel / show she is watching, right? Logical, isn't it, especially if you are a startup with budgetary constraints.

With PTV, advertisers can chalk out a customized plan for each product/service they want to promote, reach out to the right audience without blowing up their investments in reaching audiences that are likely to be less interested.

Level-Playing Field for Broadcasters

PTV is also a boon for smaller TV channels (broadcasters). While large TV networks have a big sales force, smaller TV channels are unable to deploy large sales teams that can effectively pitch to big advertisers. As a result, they are often stuck with unsold inventory. This is where PTV plays a big role in making sure TV channels reap maximum revenue from their inventory by unlocking and exposing inventory to a larger spread of buyers to maximise return from their inventory. The smaller channels have a fair chance in the game, as long as they have the audience the advertiser wants.

PTV is indeed beneficial for start-ups on both sides of the game, buying and selling. With PTV, start-ups will definitely hit a home run!