A myriad of business verticals will pour $18.6 billion dollars into local TV advertising in 2019.

SAM ™, BIA’s Survey of Advertising and Marketing, reveals key verticals like Auto, General Services and Retail spend the most on local TV; however, Professional and Financial businesses report the highest perceived return on investment (ROI) for their TV advertising.

Close to half of Professional Services firms (which includes lawyers, consultants, architects, engineering, etc.) and over 40 percent of Financial services companies (which ranges from accountants to investment firms and planners to commercial banks) rate their investment in OTA TV as “extraordinary” and report getting 10x – 20x in reward from their spend.

What insights should you take away from this SAM research? Here are 5 selling strategies to consider:

ROI increases spend. ROI is a key factor when considering spend on TV, so show advertisers examples or case studies of a similar business and their successes.

Selling TV: TV advertisers plan on spending more on TV in 2019, especially Financial Services and Technology businesses. Top 3 factors influencing ad spend include exposure and customer engagement benchmarks, expected ROI and business conditions.

Selling Mobile: Advertisers see high ROI from enhanced listings in mobile apps (like Yelp) and mobile search.

Selling Digital: When it comes to digital, targeting capabilities are central to business spend and social and email is the most popular media to buy from traditional media sellers. 

Importance of Salesperson in Ad Buying: Most advertisers said it is very important to have an on-site salesperson for ad/marketing buying needs.

The SAM™ survey data, as well as our local forecast data, is available through BIA’s local advertising dashboard, BIA ADVantage. Additional information about BIA’s SAM study can be found here and individual reports can be purchased here.