The Super Bowl holds a unique excitement for me, as it does for most. There’s yummy food, an exciting game to watch and… the commercials! While many will be watching this year to see whether it will be Peyton Manning or Russell Wilson holding the Lombardi trophy at the end, there are plenty of you out there who watch solely for the commercial breaks. Superbowl ads have become as much of a tradition as the game itself.

For small brands, watching the big guys’ ads play out on one of the biggest televised events of the year can make some envious. Who doesn’t want to be in a position where you can pay $4 million ( According to CNN Money, that’s the standard for a Super Bowl ad in 2014) for a 30 second slot without blinking an eye and reach millions of prospect’s TVs?

So, for all of the money and all of those eyes, a Super Bowl ad must result in Super Conversions, right? — wrong! It’s well known that despite the hefty price tag and millions of viewers (last year a reported 108.41 million tuned in) Super Bowl ads actually convert less than other ads.

Why is that? Even though the reach is huge, the impact is small. These giant ads are designed to reach everyone, not speak to the individual. While they will get a lot of views, they won’t make a lot of sales.

There are two things that your small business can do do influence buyers better than the Super Bowl:

Personalize

Being a person, a real person, is by far, a huge benefit that the small guys have over the big ones. You have the ability to personally respond to comments about your company and you can personally reach out to your customers and prospects.

Adding a personal touch and letting your customers know you are grateful for their business can help greatly with retention. Prospects also respond better when sent personalized emails. Marketing Sherpa found that in email marketing, a personalized subject line has a 17.36% higher average click-through rate than others.

I know, I know…sending personalized emails to all of your prospects? Sounds Super Time-Consuming. Using a sales and marketing software can help you to automate all of this and send communications to all of your contacts that are still personalized.

Segment

Segmenting your prospects means that you can send them more relevant information. This goes hand in hand with sending personalized information.

You should know what your prospects are interested in. Why did they opt-in to your list? Did they request information about a certain product? Then don’t send them generalized information about everything. Your click-through rates, responses and ultimately customer conversions will be much higher if you target them with info that they want!

While we are all glued to our TVs this Sunday and chatting at the water cooler about our favorite commercials at the office on Monday, you can breathe easy knowing that the millions of dollars spent on Super Bowl commercials are more for your entertainment than anything else.  Your personalized, small business efforts are more effective at bringing in the Super dough.