For some, watching the Super Bowl has become a family tradition and a cultural phenomenon. Everyone’s excited. And it’s not just a football game, but also a massive media craze, magnetizing the mainstream.
Super Bowl 2014 set an impressive record of 111.5 million TV viewers. Last year, 2015 broke another record with 118.5 million viewers. These huge numbers signify our insatiable love for football.
Super Bowl is a hot spot for Advertisers
Due to the enormous audience rating, Super Bowl has become a marketing team’s dream, assuming you can afford a spot. In 2014, a 30-second ad cost $4 million. Whereas, 2015 skyrocketed to $4.5 million. And 2016 rates will increase even higher to $5 million for 30 seconds.
For bluechip companies, those millions of dollars are worth every penny as they know that the ad could impact their business on a profound level. Imagine, millions of viewers exposed to your brand in a single flash. A great opportunity.
However, for entrepreneurs who don’t have millions laying around, they cost can seem ridiculous. Or, even if you have the cash it can be quite a gamble.
An Alternative Way
While a 30 or 60 second Super Bowl ad could put your business in the “grand spotlight,” still, few advertising verticals can beat online advertising; specifically, optimizing your website through SEO. Like the Super Bowl, SEO can expose your business to millions of people, too, but at a fraction of the cost.
Here’s the reality: The first three results on Google get ~60 percent of all clicks. That’s a lot of visitors. If that’s the reality, why waste money through other expensive or risky advertising plays?
Additionally, exposure isn’t the only key to advertising. Conversions and sales are what matter. Advertising mechanisms, like the Super Bowl, are a bit like the shotgun approach. You go for quantity over quality. No doubt that hundreds of millions of viewers is impressive. But what if only 1% of that audience is your target demographic? That means you effectively wasted $4,950,000. With SEO, you can target specific search terms to expose your company to those that actively sought out your industry.