Colleen Szot, Wonderful Writer

When I meet Colleen Szot, I’m instantly reminded of Fran­ces McDormand’s character in the 1996 movie Fargo. There’s the accent: Colleen is from Minnesota. And she’s unfailingly polite and cheerful. But just like McDormand’s Marge Gunderson, don’t let the kindly exterior fool you into thinking she’s a pushover―she’s a shark. One of the most popular infomercial screenwriters, Colleen knows just what to say to manipulate drowsy, impressionable Americans to get off the couch and head to the phone.

This article will look at a couple of options and then break the process into three components, Program & Product Development, TV Production & Media Buying, and Operational Support, (i.e., merchant banking, telemarketing, and product fulfillment/customer service). We'll then take a look at how each works, and fits in with the other two.

Overall, the real key to success in spot production still boils down to one thing: the product. “Many products just can't live up to the financial expectations held by people coming into the industry, so be realistic,” says Garnett. “Remember: most spots fail. Know that if you don't do your homework, your product could fail too.”

1998 was the Year of Golf for Colleen Szot. “It started out with the Orlimar Trimetal, and then I was flooded with requests to write for golf gloves, trainers, putters, books and videos,” says the Minneapolis-based writer. Success for Szot means that now, after nine years of writing direct response and 22 years in the advertising business, she gets to pick and choose her projects.

Szot didn't wait for a healthy cash flow before she began to market. “The very first year I was in business, when I thought I was going to have a struggle finanacially, I ran ads in very prominent publications—and they weren't little ads. I ran a $900 ad in the Informercial Sourcebook which is the bible for the industry, and have grown the ad every year.

While not every infomercial these days is neatly cloaked in an information-packed wrapper, marketers and producers are taking new and different tacks to get through to a world full of consumers who are becoming more and more immune to advertising by the day.

“If you're not familiar with DRTV, my best advice would be to align yourself with a production company that knows the business,” says Colleen Szot, head of Colleen Szot—Wonderful Writer, LLC, Minneapolis.

The most important aspect of a great script is the demonstration of the product, aka the “wow” factor. Of course, the advantage television has over most other media is that a marketer can show what their product does.