The Bargain That Isn't

We really are sheep.

I was asked recently what I thought of the Super Bowl commercials. I told the person who asked that I had zero thoughts because I hadn’t bothered to watch them. Why? Several reasons, but the most important one: I was too busy doing things that actually generated money.

But the truth is that I can’t help but get agitated at the HUGE, unproductive waste, sloth and stupidity of most of the advertisers. The only intelligent life on that planet are the people GETTING the checks. The cost to run a 30-second spot this year was approximately $7 million – and that doesn’t include the cost of production, which can easily be twice that for the advertisers. Anyone who is convinced that selling B2B is any different than selling to consumers…or who doesn’t believe that people make EMOTIONAL decisions, then justify with logic, needs only to watch 2 or 3 Super Bowl ads to have empirical evidence to the contrary.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, can logically justify the commercials they produce as the highest and best use of their marketing dollars IF the goal was to produce SALES, which is, by the way, what marketing and advertising are supposed to do. I suspect they aren’t teaching that in the universities anymore because keeping score is soooo 1980.

What you are watching is a giant competition of “my man apples are bigger than YOUR man apples.” The corporate marketing teams and the advertisers who sell these ads are NOT planning and plotting for months about how they can sell more product but are trying to figure out who is going to have the most talked-about Super Bowl ad, where success is measured in…wait for it…hashtags. #ishityounot. Give me half of the $7 million+ these advertisers spent on Super Bowl ads and I could outperform these meatheads in sales. As O’Leary says, “Money speaks to me,” and I cannot sit by and watch it get ruthlessly murdered on wasted advertising. The screams haunt me.

Another giant problem with Super Bowl ads: people are watching the ads to be entertained, NOT to buy something. Place and intention matter when selling. That’s why the Home Shopping Network and QVC does so well; people are tuning in with the INTENTION to buy. It’s also why trade shows and conferences can work so well. People are in the mindset to find NEW: new vendors, new opportunities, new connections, new products. This is also why Google AdWords are more valuable than Facebook ads (and, subsequently, more expensive). People are searching for a specific thing to buy on Google. They are there to do business, to search, find someone and buy something. On Facebook, they are there to be distracted and NOT think, NOT make decisions (to be clear, I’m not making a case against Facebooks ads, just pointing out why Google PPC is more expensive, particularly in B2B services).

The BIG lesson in this? YOU have to ruthlessly manage your investments into ANYTHING, time AND money, to make sure you are getting a direct and measurable ROI. That “free” or “cheap” marketing campaign is no bargain if you’re getting a lot of leads that are unqualified, won’t convert or are low-money clients. You can’t take “awareness” to the bank. The person asking me to speak at their conference for free is NOT a bargain or a good use of my time UNLESS I have the right quantity and quality of audience and sufficient time to pitch a product.

I find that many MSPs don’t use PPC, direct mail, SDRs and other “expensive” media because it “costs too much.” Dumb. It’s foolish to judge any marketing or sales initiative on the spend alone, be it a LOT (like Super Bowl ads, and therefore they insist it MUST work because it’s expensive and “gets your name out there”), or a little (like free social media). What’s important is the quality of the return. Many MSPs are turning to places like the Philippines to find SDRs, with the ONLY advantage being they’re CHEAP. They later find out that these employees are HUMAN, and like all employees are imperfect and need coaching, training and management, made harder because they aren’t in your office. Nothing is “cheap” or “expensive” without context.

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