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What the super bowl commercials should teach you about making money online.

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST

As the old saying goes you can run down the hill and catch one cow or you can walk down the hill slowly and catch them all.

Just like catching cows, strategy is the most important ingredient to successfully making money online.

It’s not about what you do but HOW you do it.

It doesn’t matter if you’re making $100 per month or $100,000 it all boils down to executing a winning strategy.

Watching the super bowl commercials this past Sunday should have been like being a kid at Disney World for an internet marketer or anyone interested in making money online.

If you got caught up in “the Harbaugh bowl” and missed it here’s what you should have learned about making money online:

1. Pre promote major launches.

Beyoncé was announced as the headliner for the Super Bowl on October 16, 2012 about four months ago. So if you’re thinking about launching a new product and you’re wondering how long to pre promote before your launch date, “DING”. There’s your answer.

2. Integrate branding and partnerships.

The statement from the the NFL read, “Beyoncé to perform Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII halftime show”. This immediately captured in your mind who was involved and the fact that the show itself is a separate product. If you read the press release at the bottom it says, “The Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show is an NFL Network production”.

If you’re thinking about creating a collaborative product with someone else this year and you want to know how to brand it, “DING”, there’s your answer.

3. Use tiered advertising options.

The NFL uses a hierarchical structure for its super bowl advertisers.

The premier advertising main event is the halftime show which the NFL partnered with PEPSI to produce. Then, the NFL took the money it raised from selling headliner advertising space to PEPSI and signed Beyoncé as the keynote performer.

You could sell ad space on your blog and then take the money to create new interesting content to attract new viewers.

If you sold a headline banner for $75 you could pay someone on YouTube to sing a song or something for your blog and that could bring in new traffic for years. Who know’s it could even go viral? Remember Tyres’s original Coca-Cola ad?

Who should you approach about buying ad space on your site?

Lets say you’re making $10/month off of Google’s adsense, just call the companies who’s ads you notice on your site. Explain that you can offer them a better advertising deal direct.

Offer tiered advertising options, remember the Super Bowl. Offer a premier headline banner, a featured section, and a standard “value” option. This is comparable to headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, sponsoring a special in-game segment, or just running a 30 sec commercial.

4. It’s all about cross marketing, niches’.

The ads from the super bowl reinforce my theory that while people have an ever shrinking attention span they have an ever growing interest span.

This means people are interested in more and more diverse topics and subjects than ever.

It’s like everybody has multiple random personalities or something.

If you’re focusing only on growing your audience within the boundaries of your niche you could be making a big mistake. The biggest opportunity could be found by cross marketing outside of your core niche audience.

In the old days you could successfully peg someone’s interest by knowing their demographic. Things have changed again, I would expect to see more cross marketing campaigns like the Budweiser Pepsi collaboration.

When it comes to expanding your audience the key is to bring in the new without losing the old unless the old are STALE and inactive, then they gotta go.

WHAT TO DO:

Don’t assume that you already know what cross markets will be interested your niche, use the scientific approach.

Researching “keywords” is too boring and it takes too long.

If you follow this process you’ll save time and actually enjoy blogging while connecting with your audience and new visitors at the same time.

Start creating content that is inspired by current events and trending topics. Ex what “Lance Armstrong” taught me about “Cell phone companies”.
Review your statistics to determine which posts generated the best response in terms of traffic, email signups, and social media shares.
Make a note of the “cross market niches” and create more content like this in the future, especially when the keyword is trending.

EXAMPLE: If your blog is about electronic gadgets but Kim Kardashian is trending you may want to write about the phone that she uses and your reaction to finding out she stopped using an iPhone.

When it’s done right, this type of consumable content is a great ice breaker for new visitors and it’s a “fun” way to mix things up for your existing audience. You don’t want a party full of wall flies.

5. The big dogs pay to play.

Errrrr the Big Dog pays to play I should say.

GoDaddy is the biggest domain name registrar by far with over 30% of the market share. What separates them from everyone else is their spicy super bowl commercials.

You can call their ads a lot of things but easy to forget is not one of them.
You can call their company a lot of things but complacent is not one of them.

What can you learn from Godaddy’s super bowl commercials?

Arbitrage!

The 2013 super bowl ads were reported to cost $3.8 million for one 30 second spot. GoDaddy invested who knows how many millions of dollars to produce and run their commercial during the Super Bowl.

This resulted in who knows how many millions of new visitors to their website. This new traffic generated who knows how many millions of dollars in new sales; due to their high conversion rates which justify and provide the means for the super bowl ad investment.

It’s really simple actually, and you can copy their strategy and use it for your online business.

No, you don’t have to spend $4 million dollars on a super bowl ad.

You just have to understand two very important things:

1. How many NEW visitors does it take you to earn one sale.

Think about McDonald’s restaurants, there are very few people who visit without placing an order. You need to know how many NEW people visit your website before they buy something. You should know this number. You have to shrink this number.

2. How much does it cost you to get a new batch of visitors?

A “batch” is the amount of new people it takes you to earn one sale. If you want another sale you just need another batch. How much money does it cost you to attract another batch of people? You should know this number. You have to shrink this number.

EXAMPLE: If it costs you $25 to attract a batch of visitors and there are 100 new visitors in a batch you can make more money multiple ways:

Increase the VALUE/QUALITY of your product and raise the price. This will earn you more money even with the same traffic. If your product sells for $45 just add new features and charge $55. Tip: Upgrade your eBooks to include a premium video series.
Decrease the number of visitors it takes to make one sale. You have to convert browsers into buyers at an increasingly more effective rate. If there are too many browsers this is a sign of a problem. The goal here is to get things headed in the right direction and keep it that way. Understand it will take some time to get your buyer/browser ratio in an “ideal” range. Tip: Offer a time sensitive special discount or a coupon promotion.
Decrease the amount of money it costs to attract a batch of new visitors. Remember, it’s “trash in, trash out”. Attracting the wrong batch of visitors will screw up your whole system so don’t go the cheap route, use strategy instead. Tip: Focus your marketing dollars locally first then regionally. This will save money. Once you establish your baseline performance in one area simply take what works best and grow into another location.