Companies spend too much money on television advertising.

There I said it. It’s insane the amount of money that these companies spend to get their names on the tube for less than one minute. Yes television can be a good way to expose your brand and keep it fresh in peoples’ minds, but at what cost? Take a look at the picture below:

If you want your company’s ad to show up for 30 seconds on any of the “Big Four” networks, you’re going to be spending between $75K and $200K. That’s more than some folks’ mortgages! And these numbers are dwarfed by the price you’ll pay for getting your ad to show on the biggest television advertising day of the year—the SuperBowl. It boggles my mind to think that the average cost of a 30-second SuperBowl ad in 2012 was $3.5 million. It’s borderline criminal I tell you! And TV advertising continues to grow even though it is getting more expensive. Check out these stats and trends:

To me, this seems very counter-intuitive. These advertisers are competing for the same thing, driving up the cost for themselves. And worst still? People are spending more time going online than watching television. Back in my day, I would spend hours in front of the TV. But now, I spend most of my day surfing the net than channel surfing. And if this is true for me, someone who grew up alongside the internet, it must be the standard for young people today now that the internet is in its prime. Advertisers need to look elsewhere. They need to break free from this traditional marketing medium and look for what will be the norm in the future. That’s why search engine marketing is the future of advertising. Now taking this into consideration, would you rather spend that $110,000 (from the picture above) on a medium that’s losing momentum or on one that’s just getting off the ground?

Let’s go back to the SuperBowl. Now imagine if an advertiser used those $3.5 million on pay per click advertising instead of a 30-second commercial. If you took that as your monthly budget in a paid search campaign and had an average cost-per-click (CPC) of $2, you will have 1.75 million people visit your website in one month. Sure, you could argue that the SuperBowl reached over 111 million people. But the problem is the ad was exposed to 111 million random viewers in a matter of 30 seconds that will not significantly increase sales. That’s why most of these ads are about maintaining brand awareness for already-established products.

The interested few are worth more than the random many.

Let’s go back to those 1.75 million people that you could have brought to your site. These people are worth more than those 111 million because of two words—control and intent. The internet allows users to control their own journey. I feel safe in assuming most people enjoy being their own captain, something TV just can’t provide on the same level the internet can. Bigger still is the notion of intent. Users went into the search engine with the intent of looking for your particular product/service. So these 1.75 million people are not random viewers, they are people actively seeking your specific product/service.

Television is not a bad way to advertise, but it costs too much and it’s slowly fizzling out. Look to the future people. A shift in the way we advertise is already happening and you have to decide whether you’ll move with it or be left behind in its wake.

So what do you think? Would you agree or am I off my rocker? Let us know!

Pictures courtesy of Voice.com