The Truth About Super Bowl Advertising

The screaming fans. The national media coverage. The fact that hundreds of football hating Americans tune in every year to watch the commercials. There's a definite appeal to advertising during the Super Bowl, which is why companies pay millions of dollars for the privilege each year. That thirty second slot is seen by over 130 million people (on average) which is tremendous exposure. But did you know that Super Bowl advertising might not be as effective as you think it is?

A recent study preparing to publish in Managerial and Decision Economics this summer shows that researchers have found no quantifiable evidence to prove that advertising during the Super Bowl is any more effective than advertising during prime time or other "peak" times and locations. Those companies that have seen a boost in their sales are either new to the scene and still climbing the growth curve of their products' life cycle or pulling out all of the creative stops to make commercials that are almost as interesting as the game.

After all, who doesn't remember the Budweiser frogs?

There's a lesson to be learned here. Sometimes the fickle market can be misleading, and advertising attempts that seem like they should present you with a huge yield are actually remarkably ineffective. This is why it's so important to do your research before deciding where you're going to spend your advertising budget-especially if you're a small business counting your pennies and trying to lower your overhead. Sometimes deals that sound too good to be true really are, and the last thing you want to do is waste your precious resources when they could be put to better use somewhere else.

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The Pros and Cons of Billboard Advertising

When you're stuck in a car traveling for miles down the highway there's nothing more interesting (besides insulting the other drivers) than spending your time checking out the highway billboard signs. Their widespread appeal and ability to attract the attention of weary travelers with nothing else to occupy their time makes billboard advertising an extremely popular way to get the word out about your business; however, before you go out and buy the first billboard space you see it's important to truly understand the pros and cons of outdoor advertising.

The advantages of billboard advertising are pretty obvious. You've got a fairly large pool of travelers that goes past your billboard every day, which means there's a good chance you'll increase your exposure dramatically. And because billboards are large (and technology has given us the ability to do so many cool things with them) you've got huge amounts of creative freedom with which to play to transform your billboard virtually any way you want to.

On the other hand, billboard advertising tends to be expensive-really expensive. The average cost of a highway billboard sign runs between $900 and $2500 a month depending on size and exposure, with off-highway billboards running anywhere from $200 on up. Because you can't really target your billboard advertising attempts the way you can most other marketing strategies you're going to be buying into the mass media mindset and hoping it works. This can make for a fairly dubious returns on your investment. Finally, if you're going to be spreading your billboard advertising attempts across a wide field you're going to find it very difficult to regulate your billboards. (The whys of that have always seemed rather dubious, but the statistics never lie.)

Creative billboard advertising has the capability to boost your profits dramatically, but it's important to do your research and ensure that you've done everything you can to make your billboard convey the message you want to send to appeal to your target market.

Find more marketing info and tools for your company at http://www.1uptoyou.com/.

What Does Advertising Do For Your Business?

You hear over and over again the importance in Internet marketing, but how often do you actually stop and think about the power of advertising for your business? Yes, there is in fact a difference between Internet marketing and advertising-sort of. It's a little confusing, but there you have it!

To break it down into marketing terms, advertising is part of your marketing campaign. The first step of any good marketing campaign should be research-research into your target market, what they want and, more importantly, how your product or service is going to give it to them!

What you're going to find is that your target market isn't always a single group of individuals. Very often it covers several different groups, and each of those groups has their own wants and needs. Now, you have two choices when it comes to selling your products to these groups. You can either:

a) Build a personal relationship with each and every one of your customers, which is great if you're specializing in B2B commerce and can work with each company's buyer personally but not very effective if you're attempting to market directly to a large consumer market, or

b) Launch an advertising campaign geared toward mass marketing using widespread media like the Internet, newspapers, radio and television.

Advertising doesn't have to be the dull, boring ads that have been lying around for years. Your ads are the first opportunity your customers and clientele have to get to know your company, so it's important you use each ad to convey the way you want your customers to see you. Do you want to have a laid back, friendly persona or are you all business?

Advertising is one of the most important tools you're going to have when it comes to promoting your business, so it's important to make the most of it! Find the tools you need to succeed at http://www.1uptoyou.com/.

Print Advertising: Alive and Kicking After All These Years

It's easy to look at today's Internet crazed society and believe that, like Elvis, print advertising is dead. Gone. Never to be seen again. Which, of course, is why so many companies are still launching email campaigns, taking out space in phone books, placing ads in the newspaper and launching articles and advertisements in magazines and newspapers.

Maybe print advertising isn't as gone as you thought it was.

While it's true that print advertising isn't the most effective (or inexpensive) promotional opportunity out there, it's still one that shouldn't be ignored. Despite the growing trend of digitized literature there are still people who prefer the feeling of holding a book in their hands, or buying a newspaper that you can do the crossword puzzle in. Consumers are still buying books, magazines and newspapers, which still makes them prime territory for a strong marketing campaign.

Of course, as mass media marketing is going flying out the window and television and radio advertising is losing its power a new, improved method print advertising has come into power-direct mail marketing campaigns. Direct mail marketing campaigns let you put together postcards, brochures and informational packets and send them to members of your direct target market, located either through your website or because they're visitors to your business's physical location. This process is repeated ad nauseum throughout the year, letting your customers know when you're having a sale, what new products and services you're offering and, most importantly, that your business is still alive and kickin'.

Print advertising isn't dead, it's just been pushed down most people's priority list over the years. Too bad the same can't be said about the King…


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