Super Bowl Ads Leave Long Lasting Effect

I’m not a team sports guy. So, this time of year my head isn’t spinning with Super Bowl afterthoughts or dreams of missed calls and dropped passes. But I did watch the Super Bowl. And I enjoyed it.

See, there is a not-so-obvious element of individual competition there that I like. In fact, it’s probably the part that most of us casual observers enjoy most – the commercials. While Super Bowl commercials may not be the most cost effective use of a marketing budget (they have singlehandedly sunk large companies into financial ruin) they do provide good lessons for entrepreneurs like us.

How?

Well, it’s hard to squeeze a message into 30 seconds. Near impossible. Yet, as a home business owner you MUST do it. And you must do it effectively if you want to leave a lasting impression.

“On whom,” you ask?

On anyone and everyone you meet.

So, I always recommend that every home-based entrepreneur come up with his or her own “30 Second Face-to-Face Commercial.” Word of mouth is your most powerful source of advertising. And it’s free. But what better place to take a cue from than the $2.6 million sound bites on Super Bowl Sunday.

In 30 seconds you don’t have time for detail. Instead, you need to communicate the key messages of who you are, what benefit you provide and how your customers should feel about you.

Some commercials do it… Take FedEx’s pre-historic slant on safe, reliable delivery.

Some commercials don’t… Remember the cat in the kitchen from last year. Good. Now, remember what they were selling? NOPE.

When you’re coming up with your personal commercial, consider these three points:

1) How do I describe what I do in less than five seconds?

If it takes longer than that, you’re confusing your customer. If you make lawns greener, tell your customer that. If you help people free themselves of debt, say that. Don’t bore your customers with details.

2) What is the number one benefit my company provides over anything else?

No matter what you’re saying, your customer is thinking one thing: “How does this benefit me?” So, don’t forget to tell them that. Volvos are safe. FedEx is reliable. BMW is the “Ultimate Driving Machine,” packed with speed and performance. What are you offering EXACTLY? If you can summarize your key benefit in one sentence, you’re doing well.

3) What should your customer do NOW?

This is the part most Super Bowl commercials forget. Tell you customer exactly what they should do next. Whether you want them to call you, have one of their clients call you, visit a web site or mail in a form… tell them exactly how you can help.

Maybe if the big spenders had listened to this advice, there would be a few less teary-eyed ad executives on Madison Avenue this month.

By the way, this years winners are…

FedEx…
GoDaddy…
And Burger King.

I think the Steelers might have won the game.

Russ Dalbey
The Dalbey Wealth Institute witcfb.com dalbeyblog.com

Related Information of Interest:

Advertising Divas and Consumer Queens
In the past, the saying has always been “don’t underestimate the power of branding” but now the best advice seems to be “don’t underestimate the power of women!” Ignore it at your peril.

If statistics out of the US are any guide for the rest of the world to follow, and in the past this has been the case, then everyone in the advertising industry should give their serious attention to this fact. Jupiter Research has concluded that women influence 83 percent of all purchase decisions. There are more women online today than men.

And looking forward, 70 percent of all US women will be online in 2006, and looking even further ahead, 85 million women will purchase products and services online by 2010.

These statistics are huge by anyone’s measurements. Does anyone out there still have doubts as to the potential of ecommerce? Or more importantly, guys, how do your doubts hold up as to the influence of women on the internet?

US women over 40 are devoting more time online per week than running errands, eating or preparing meals, relaxing, or spending time with friends. Their internet time outweighs watching TV, listening to the radio and other media activities.

So what does this really tell us?

Fact #1 Advertisers in both traditional and new media, have up until now, been seriously underestimating women power
Fact #2 Women are the dominant gender when it comes to online spending
Fact #3 Women know women better than men know women (I’m sure most husbands would agree.)

Who better to understand the consumer behavior of women than women themselves? This last fact should lend itself to a rush to employ or promote females into the positions of advertising executives and creative directors. Now guys, don’t get us gals wrong, sensitive men can still create great ads for women and vice versa, but if the above statistics can be believed, then surely you should be eagerly encouraging the women in your industry to play a greater role in both decision making and creativity.

This makes such common sense to me, nothing biased about it.

Penny Archer, herself a “Consumer Queen”, is a Director of SmartDames FZ LLC, an international email List Broker based in Dubai Media City, Dubai. Other articles that she has written can be found at http://www.smartdames.com or http://www.listownerlimbo.com

Article Marketing for Search Engine Traffic
There are sites on the net that serve tons of traffic everyday. Traffic you wish you had, right?
The web is made up of billions of links, much like a spiderï¿½s web but on a larger scale. Search engines spider the web looking for new content to add to their massive databases so they can rank how relevant it is to particular search phrases.
What are the search engines looking for?
New content! In order for any search engine to provide relevant results to their visitors (so their visitors will repeatedly use them) they must provide the best results possible for every search performed on their site.
The best search engine gets more traffic and more traffic means more advertising money for them - so search engines have to be up to date to stay competitive in their market.
The big sites on the net, people, who have page rankings of 5 upwards, obviously serve a ton of visitors per day, provide search engines with a mass of links to follow and index. Thatï¿½s why they go back to the big sites more often than the little ones.
High traffic, very popular sites are visited by the search engine robots more often than sites with little traffic. Some large sites are visited by search engines as much as 2-4 times per month.
How can article marketing increase your search engine traffic?
By submitting articles you can get links from these high traffic sites. Furthermore you can optimize your articles with your search terms to get high rankings for that particular page. This would otherwise take weeks on a new site as oppose to a well established one such as this.
Each of these sites will have its own resource area, at the end of the article, writers include a bit of Author information on where to find out more about them. Place your website link in here and bobï¿½s your uncle the search engines will find your site through that link.
The more articles you submit with your website link in them, the more pages on the net you have pointing to you from high traffic sites and the better your ranking and link popularity.
Many good article sites these days create RSS feeds for each category. This provides an additional opportunity to market your site and article to people who subscribe to the feeds.
Start submitting your articles today. You will be amazed at the results they yield.

Richard is the Publisher of Articleprobe a Free Article Distribution and Submisssion Service. Set up your account today and start submitting your articles to Articleprobe

7 Winning Tips For Article Marketers
1. Follow up with your readers.

For example, you could offer a subscription to your ezine or
you could offer a free email course in your resource box.

2. Use lots of white space.

Increase your article's white space by going over it for
sentences you can shorten and also paragraphs you could
break up into two or three shorter paragraphs.

3. Use numbered lists.

Use your numbered lists to convey points in your articles or
your steps in your "how to" article.

Numbered lists can also be used to create the content of
your article, like I did with this simple list article.

4. Use the word "you" a lot in your articles.

Make your writing feel more personal by using the word you a
lot within your article.

That way your readers will feel like you are talking
directly to them and you'll be able to better draw them into
your article's content.

5. Write to one person.

Choose a person such as a friend or spouse to write your
article to.

By doing this, you will naturally use the word you a lot
within your article, and your readers will feel like you are
talking to them one to one.

6. Offer an article announcement list.

Keep people up to date on your latest articles by publishing
an email list that announces your new articles.

You could also announce your new articles by RSS to
publishers and webmasters that like your writing.

7. Let your affiliates use your articles to earn
commissions.

Make your articles available to your affiliates to publish
on their sites or in their ezines with their affiliate links
in your resource box.

You'll be able to successfully raise your profits by turning
your articles into an effective promotional tool for your
affiliates.

Ken runs the Net Pro Marketer where you'll find informative articles on business, marketing, and ezine publishing. Browse through the articles or submit your own at: www.netpromarketer.com