Big Game Commercials: How Small Businesses Get Bad Ideas from Them
This weekend we have something that a lot of Americans are looking forward to, the big game. One thing that attracts a lot of people to the big game, so to speak, is the ads. You can see the ads on TV obviously, and a lot of people who don’t even like football love to watch the ads. What’s interesting is those ads are very entertaining.
The question is, is a 30-second ad worth, this year, as much as $5 million, that a company’s going to have to pay for 30 seconds? I don’t know if it is or not. It would be interesting to see if they could track the sales from it. It often seems that the ads are really a showcase for ad agencies to try to get future business by showing how creative they are. Creativity is definitely important when it comes to advertising, especially in the small business world, but it is not the end all and be all.
Small businesses don’t have the luxury of creating fanciful ideas that may entertain but don’t actually move a customer or prospective client toward a relationship that’s going to mean business. That’s something you always have to watch out for, because creativity, while good, does not necessarily result in more sales. So you need to track everything you do when it comes to advertising. Hold your advertising accountable, hold it completely accountable.
For example, I have a client right now, we’re running some radio ads on a local radio station, and the phone number on that ad is a tracking phone number. Every phone call that comes from that ad, we are tracking. So, we’ll have a general idea from both the visits to the website from that radio ad, as well as the phone number, to see how effective that advertising medium is at generating the business that we need to do.
I think the ad is interesting, it may not be the most creative in the world, but you know what? Creativity doesn’t necessarily translate into bonafide sales. That’s really want you want to get it to. I said it before, hold your advertising accountable. Everything you do from a marketing perspective as a small business, and I mean just about everything, needs to be able to be tracked so you can eliminate the advertising that isn’t working, and continue with the advertising that’s working, put more into it.
The more you can do that, the more effective you’ll be at generating business for yourself and your family, and your employees, et cetera. The more effective you’re doing that, the less effective in many cases your competition is.
So as you get more effective and more efficient at finding customers, and taking care of them, and delivering value, you start pulling further and further ahead of your competition who gets lured into advertising that isn’t trackable, that isn’t accountable, that while maybe creative, doesn’t reach the right people, it doesn’t result in an increase to the bottom line. We here at JustSmallBiz Marketing hold ourselves and hold every piece of advertising that comes in accountable.
Does it generate leads or not? We will do deliberate and methodical analysis of everything before we choose something. To make sure we’re delivering what’s most likely going to generate the business that is at the least cost and the highest return, so make sure you do that. Ask yourselves as you’re watching these commercials this year, what were the four or five top commercials that you remember from last year? Go out, look out on the Web and do that.
Did any of you buy a Fiat? How about Dove men’s body wash, or anything else like that?
So we’re constantly entertained, but are we changing our buying patterns, and are we making sure that at the end of the day we’re buying a product as a result of a commercial. Chances are, you probably aren’t. If you like Doritos, you’re probably going to eat Doritos. If you don’t like Doritos, you’re probably not going to change your behavior and buy Doritos as a result of the commercial, and that’s just an example.
When you get bigger, you’ve got money to blow, sure, try some innovative commercials, etc., but make sure you track them. Make sure you can decide does this thing work? Should we do it again or not? You know? Sometimes we have to look at really what works, and then adjust from there. Creativity is great, that’s what TV’s about, entertainment, movies, books, etc., concerts, we enjoy that. But at the end of the day at small businesses, we do not have money to waste.
We have to hold everything accountable, we have to make sure it’s trackable, and by doing that, we can ensure that our business is going to continue and grow while others may languish. Thanks, if you need a free consultation with me, just email at brad@justsmallbiz.com, that’s B-I-Z.com, or call me at 321-613-8476 and root for the Broncos, I lived in the Denver area for some time with the Air Force Academy, so that’s the team I’m rooting for. So let’s hope we can make that a reality. Good day.
