Direct Tv Account

Mail can deliver more information and deliver it in a more credible manner. Mail gives you the ability to deliver messages to special audiences or geographic areas that are difficult to target with a TV spot. Finally, mail does not need as many repetitions to make its impact.

AS THE COST OF advertising increases, many campaigns face an important decision. Should television or mail be their primary method of communicating with voters? There are a number of differences between the two mediums and cost is only one of them.

Television is generally a more effective way to communicate with voters because it does a better job of delivering information -- regardless of the interest of the voter. When a TV spot goes on the air, voters will generally see and hear the message unless they do something affirmative to avoid it. To avoid a TV message, a voter can change the channel, go to the kitchen or pick up a magazine. But absent some effort by the voter, the message will punch through.

Unlike television, mail requires the voter to take action to get the message. To take real information from a mail piece, the voter must look at it, open it and read at least a little. Reading is work. A lot of mail never gets read.

Nevertheless, there are advantages to mail. Mail can deliver more information and deliver it in a more credible manner. Mail gives you the ability to deliver messages to special audiences or geo graphic areas that are difficult to target with a TV spot. Finally, mail does not need as many repetitions to make its impact.

If a piece of mail engages a voter, the voter can take away a lot of information. Repetition is not the issue. The question is whether the mailing engages the reader. Many television consultants will tell you that you need to air enough TV spots to be seen seven to 10 times by an average viewer. Mail does not require that kind of repetition.

Given these considerations, a campaign's choice of television or mail involves a lot more than cost. Comparing the two mediums may be like comparing apples and oranges. But that doesn't means you shouldn't check the price when you go to the supermarket.

Few campaigns actually take the trouble to compute the cost of reaching a voter on television versus the cost of reaching a voter through the mail. Comparing costs is not an easy process. To do so, we will have to make a lot of assumptions. The end product will be far from exact, but it ought to give you a better idea of costs. So let's tackle this problem and do the best job we can.

Computing the Costs

The question is: "What does it cost to put a television spot in front of one voter versus the cost of putting one piece of mail in front of one voter." The simple and surprising answer is that, in most cases, for a large campaign, television is a lot cheaper.

Putting a mail piece in front of one human being might cost around $.50, depending on quantity, design and who is doing your mail. Since you mail by household, you can reduce that number by dividing it by the average number of voters per household -- generally about 1.5. So the actual cost to put a mail piece in front of one registered voter works out to be the cost of one piece of mail divided by the average number of people in the household. Under our assumptions, $.50 divided by 1.5 equals $.33.

Putting a television spot in front of one person costs only only a penny or two. But the problem is that many of those people either won't live in your district or won't be registered to vote. Before describing how to compute the cost of putting a television spot in front of one voter, let's describe how TV spots are bought.

When you buy television spots, you measure your purchase by "gross rating points," or GRPs. If you buy 100 GRPs, you have theoretically put your spot in front of each viewer in the broadcast area one time. The truth is that you will have put your spot in front of some viewers several times and other viewers not at all. Some voters are more difficult to reach on television - especially younger men. But, on the average, 100 GRPs will deliver one spot per viewer within the "media market" or area in which your spots will be watched.

So, if you want to measure the approximate cost of putting a television ad in front of one voter, you divide the cost of purchasing 100 GRPs by the number of registered voters in your district or the part of the district you are analyzing.

Reaching Viewers

To illustrate, let's start with an example. Let's assume that you are running for Congress in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. When you buy television in Dallas-Fort Worth, you reach viewers in more than 30 North Texas counties. Your congressional district is one of many. So you are going to pay to reach a lot more viewers who can't vote in your election than viewers who can.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth market, the estimated cost for 1 GRP during November of 2002 is $401. You need to add to that figure the cost of producing the spots. Production costs can vary widely. If you know what your production budget is going to be -- and how many points you are going to buy -- you can divide the production budget by the number of GRPs and add that number to the cost of a point. An easier way might be to figure that production runs about 10 percent of the media budget. So for simplicity's sake, let's add 10 percent to the cost of a GRP, giving us a cost per GRP of $441.

If our media is costing $441 per GRP, the cost of 100 GRPs is $44,100. A typical congressional district has about 380,000 voters. If we divide the $44,100 by 380,000, we get $.12, which is the cost to put a spot in front of one voter. So in a typical congressional district in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, the comparative costs to communicate with one registered voter are as follows:

Cost to Reach One Registered Voter...
Television  $0.12
Mail        $0.33

Unfortunately, the cost comparison is not this simple. First, not all voters will vote in the election. If the election is a low turnout race, then mail will do a much better job of finding likely voters. Also, all voters are not as important as others. Both mail and television have ways of targeting undecided voters, but mail can do so with greater precision than television.

But even when you account for these factors, television is generally cheaper. Let's assume that mail, through targeting based upon voter history and age, can eliminate half of the non-voters without sacrificing coverage of the electorate.

Let's also assume that television, by focusing on news programming and programs that appeal to older voters, can do about 1/3 as well. My mail assumption is based upon evaluating various strategies for targeting voter turnout. The TV assumption is a wild guess. If you factor in these assumptions, here are the relative costs to reach an actual voter assuming turnouts of 25 percent, 50 percent and 75 percent.

Voter Turnout   TV    Mail
25%            $0.41  $0.83
50%            $0.21  $0.50
75%            $0.15  $0.39

These numbers still do not take into account the extra efficiency that mail can give you in targeting persuadable voters. If an election has a low "undecided," meaning most voters have made up their minds, then mail can do a better job of finding those voters. If the undecided numbers are high and most voters are still open to changing their minds, then television will remain a comparative bargain. There is almost no way to accurately calculate the advantage you can get from mail in more efficiently finding your persuadable voters. It is safe to assume that in a contest with a small number of undecided voters in the Dallas market, the cost to reach a voter by mail and television would be be much closer than the chart above but that TV would still be a little cheaper. If the numbers of undecided voters were large, then the television advantage would, for the most part, remain the same.

The table (see following page) shows the relative costs to put one piece of mail in front of an actual voter, at various levels of turnout in the 10 most expensive media markets in America. Estimates for television costs are based upon information provided by Media Strategies & Research and its projected fourth quarter costs for 2002. These estimates do not take into account the percentage of persuadable voters, which, if low, will make the cost to reach a voter through the mail a relatively better bargain.

Again, these numbers do not reflect the cost of reaching a persuadable voter. But they do provide a rough cost estimate of what it costs to put one communication in front of one voter who will go to the polls on election day.

None of these figures say whether TV or mail should be the dominant medium in any media market. In many large media markets, campaigns are purchasing a mix of mail and television to reap the advantages of both mediums. Where budgets are tight, a campaign must determine the minimum number of television spots it takes to break through. But as your campaign makes these decisions, it never hurts to get a rough picture of the relative costs. And based upon the cost to put one message in front of one voter, television is generally cheaper except in the largest television markets.

Hal Malchow is a partner with Crounse, Malchow, Schlackman & Hoppey, a Democratic Washington, D.C.-based direct mail firm.

Direct Mail vs. Television: $ Comparison
                    Turnout
Media Market          25%     50%    75%
Los Angeles
Television           $1.24   $0.65  $0.45
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
New York
Television           $1.19   $0.62  $0.43
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
San Francisco
Television           $0.66   $0.35  $0.24
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
Chicago
Television           $0.65   $0.34  $0.24
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
Philadelphia
Television           $0.53   $0.28  $0.19
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
Boston
Television           $0.49   $0.26  $0.18
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
Washington, D.C.
Television           $0.47   $0.25  $0.17
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
Dallas - Ft. Worth
Television           $0.41   $0.21  $0.15
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
Miami
Television           $0.40   $0.21  $0.15
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39
Seattle - Tacoma
Television           $0.33   $0.17  $0.12
Mail                 $0.83   $0.50  $0.39

COPYRIGHT 2001 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group

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