Why are the most famous, most remembered Super Bowl commercials the most famous and remembered? Because they were also the most entertaining Super Bowl commercials! Any ad man due south of Don Draper will tell you that the best advertising is also the most entertaining advertising. If you want optimum results from your marketing efforts, take a bit of advice from the “mad men” among us and throw some show in with the sell!
You Have to Engage Your Audience to Sell Your Audience
Whatever your product or service, your business relies on savvy marketing and promotion to get the word out to consumers. And in today’s communication age where media bombards us constantly, it is all the more important that your message stand out from the crowd. Of course it’s important to inform your prospects and customers on what you’re offering them, but information alone won’t cut it. In short, you have to engage your audience to hook, hold, and sell your audience. Be creative. Work with a top designer on your website. Hire a content writer with a storyteller’s instincts. Show and sell. And “sell the sizzle.”
Advertising as Entertainment: Think Like a Sit-Com
Think of some of the most popular and successful television ad campaigns of our times. These marketing drives are prime examples of advertising as entertainment: the Progressive Insurance ads with trade character Flo amusing us with clever wit and wisdom, the Jack In The Box spots with puppet-headed Jack wryly shifting through various situations centered around eating his fast food, the hilarious, irreverent Dos Equis Beer campaign spotlighting “the most interesting man in the world,” and the creditscore.com ads with the hip rock and roll band blaring out the attributes of that service. All of these commercials absorb viewers the same way a hit sit-com ingratiates itself with its audience, insuring that the viewers tune-in again or seek out the show online. It that same kind of connection with the audience that makes us remember the successful TV spots, and in huge numbers, buy the products and services they’re selling.
Be an Entertainer as Well as a Marketer
So in building a winning website, increasing your social media presence, doing email blasts, and creating effective PR—in short, orchestrating your entire content marketing campaign for increased traffic and sales—think like an entertainer as well as a marketer. Think of your customers as an audience, make them happy, you’ll sell them, and they’ll buy.
On with the show!
Michael V is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
