Invention Services Firm Launches DRTV Effort
Pittsburgh-based InventHelp has launched a new DRTV campaign aimed at inventors looking to develop and market their products.
The 30-second spots are running on national cable outlets such as ESPN, as well as several broadcast channels around the country, says company spokeswoman Nicole Hait.
The spots use both a web address (www.inventhelp.com) and toll free number (1-800-INVENTION) as response mechanisms. Media buys are adjusted, depending on what times and channels generate the most response, says Hait.
Past InventHelp DRTV efforts were more general and did not focus on specific inventions. “Our traditional advertising has been more general, reaching out to inventors with the question, ‘Do you have an idea?’” says Hait.
Overall, InventHelp offers services for inventors who are attempting to submit an idea to industry. They include giving a “good faith review” of products, offering prototypes of inventions and developing brochures to help inventors present their products to potential manufacturers and marketers.
InventHelp also puts inventors in touch with patent attorneys but stresses that the company itself does not offer patenting advice.
The company also runs Inpex, a trade show for inventors which takes place in June in Pittsburgh.
Two current spots feature a caveman chipping away at a wheel and promote the Drill Driver power drill attachment and the Sidesleeper Pro pillows—two recently invented products whose developers used InventHelp’s services.
The spots are aimed the largely age 35 –plus audience of male inventors. InventHelp clients also include woman inventors, tinkerers, tool junkies, and retired people, says Hait.
“We’re trying to promote these to individual inventors out there that may have an idea for an invention,” says Hait. “The goal is to raise brand awareness about InventHelp and what services we offer to inventors.
“We’re obviously hoping [these spots] would help to raise sales for the inventors of the two products, but our main goal again is to not necessarily sell product,” says Hait. “Our goal is to reach inventors with ideas.”
These DRTV spots will run until the company decides to update them with new product licensing stories, says Hait.
InventHelp is also using social media to help build brand awareness, she says.
On its Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/inventhelp, which has more than 2,400 likes, the company posts links to its blog posts and periodically has dialogues with inventors, she says.
InventHelp also has two blogs, http://blog.inventhelp.com & http://blog.inpex.com which the company uses to build awareness about inventing, products, inventions and gadgets and publicize the most up-to-date information about the show to exhibitors and attendees, says Hait.
At present, InventHelp has Facebook posts from Kevin Harrington, chairman of TV Goods Inc., who’s keynoting this year’s Inpex s show as well as posts from inventors Mark Valovich and William Santiago speaking of their inventions and experiences.
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