Whether you tuned in for part of it or the entire broadcast of the Super Bowl, this extravaganza of sport and spectacle is the most-watched single-day event of its kind in the United States. It’s popular in Canada too – average viewership during the broadcast in February 2019 was over 5.5 million.
The number of eyeballs on the event has also made the spaces between the action
the most expensive marketing real estate on TV. A single 30-second commercial spot
cost up to $5.6 million. Many of America’s large corporations such as Budweiser,
Planters, Jeep, Little Caesar’s Pizza, Kia and Amazon availed themselves of the
“opportunity” to dazzle their captive audience. Some people tune into the Super Bowl
solely to see the commercials. This is how much of a cultural phenomenon they have
become.
But for many businesses, the idea that they could drop millions of dollars on a single ad is a
ludicrous fantasy. Most small-to-medium-sized businesses are looking for
something a bit more granular in their marketing approaches. While it can be fun to
watch the creative ways Super Bowl ads attempt to capture our imaginations (and our
cash), the revenues of SMEs will be driven by more traditional promotional activities than
enlisting the services of a Post Malone, Ellen DeGeneres or MC Hammer to shill for
them.
While the glitz and glamour is nice, a small business owner like you needs to be interested in something else: Creating relationships. If buying Super Bowl ad space is out of reach the one thing you can do instead is create meantingful relationships. The goal is to have people fall in love with our services or products and we then want those same people to sing our praises so that others will come and see us too. Name recognition is important, but we also want to grow our customer base with people who have not only come to know us, but also to trust us.
An excellent strategy for relationship-building is sponsorship. Whether you connect to
others through Chambers of Commerce, business improvement areas, public events,
alumni associations or local sports teams becoming a trusted partner is within your reach.
Don’t stop placing your online ads or optimizing your website content, but don’t forget to
supplement those efforts by forging direct connections with other businesses and
organizations in your home communities.
In FanSaves case, not only do we help forge better relationships between businesses and sponsors but we also give them valuable analytics to help make each relationship worth it. Mutally beneficial relationships are always the best aren't they? And when you start focusing on building relationships and monitoring your analytics, you'll most likely notice your revenue start increasing as well.
And who knows – perhaps before long you’ll be hiring Bill Murray to help you move your
product too! Without a doubt, that would be a super development for your business, possibly as super as the Super Bowl!