The most common myth that I have heard regarding television commercials and small business advertising on TV is that you have to be Microsoft or Yahoo to afford the costs of television commercials.

The truth is that the average Joe with a small business, restaurant, car dealership, interesting product, or start-up company can put aside less than $600 and get production and a decent amount of airtime. 

After graduating from business school I got my CPA and after 5 years at a large firm, I opened my own accounting practice.  Starting from scratch was rough, but I had saved some money and had $750 in my advertising budget.  Luckily, I found this site on Google and saw Jonathan Zelner's article, I followed the link he had to the inexpensive commercial production company.  I was really surprised at how affordable commercial production could be.

Here is the breakdown of what I spent, the first time I placed a television commercial:

$399 on Commercial Production
$350 on advertising with Dish Network

I came in $100 under budget and the ad ran for one month every other night on cable nationwide.

That was two years ago and my practice is doing fantastic.  The first week was slow, but after two weeks the phones started ringing.  Sure, at first it was 2-5 calls a day, by the end of the month I averaged 12 to 15 calls a day with interest from potential clients.  I've continued to run ads sporadically and the calls keep coming.  I'm hooked.