5 Better Ideas than TV Spots — Even if You Have Enough Money for a Super Bowl Ad

A Super Bowl ad comes with a price tag of about $3 million dollars this year. Even if you have enough money in your marketing budget to pick up a 30-second spot, there are alternatives that can offer more bang for your buck than a televised ad, no matter how big an event it’s shown during. Considering how many people fast forward through the commercials, it’s time to explore other options.

1. Get involved locally: That money you were going to use on advertising? Consider spending it on a community project instead. Not only will you get warm fuzzies for the impact that your business has, but it will also offer you an opportunity to get your community talking about your company in a positive way.
2. Create a resource that will help your customers: When most customers have a problem, they don’t watch advertising or even start looking for brands. Instead, they’ll start searching online for answers to their questions. Creating a website that offers those answers is on a whole different budgetary level than a Super Bowl ad (right now, a domain name can be had from Network Solutions for $6.99 with coupon code DOMSOCIAL1), but can convert customers far more effectively.
3. Sponsor a niche publication: With $3 million in your pocket, you can afford to sponsor an entire issue of a magazine that goes out to your primary demographic. You can reach out to the people most likely to be interested in your product or services. Even with a smaller budget, it’s easy to sponsor a targeted online publication for a month or two, allowing you to reach out to audiences already interested in what you have to offer.
4. Build a social media campaign: While it’s tough to predict what will go viral, creating content (such as videos) that online users can easily share is a a good source of traffic if you sell your product or service online. One of the best examples is the ‘Will It Blend‘ videos from Blendtec — they consistently attract attention, day in and day out.
5. Put on your own event: Getting your customers out for an event — whether we’re talking about a focus group or a big conference — offers an opportunity to make your customer base feel like they’re stakeholders in your success. The more personal connections you can build, with customers or members of the media, the more likely they are to recommend you to their friends, families, and listeners.

Big companies are realizing the dropping value of a Super Bowl ad. Even Pepsi is opting for one of the options on this list: For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi did not buy a Super Bowl spot. Instead, the company chose to use the millions of dollars that would have gone to the Super Bowl spend towards the Pepsi Refresh Project. The project is offering grants to organizations and people making positive impacts in their communities, effectively integrating Pepsi into local communities.

Photo by Flickr user Fluzo

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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