Summary of "What Superbowl Commercials Can Teach Us About Content Marketing"
Podcast: Shiny New Clients!
Host: Jenna Harding (Warriner)
Episode Title: What Superbowl Commercials Can Teach Us About Content Marketing 🤔
Release Date: February 10, 2025
In this insightful episode of Shiny New Clients!, Jenna Harding delves into the parallels between Super Bowl commercials and effective content marketing strategies. Drawing from the high-stakes, high-budget world of Super Bowl advertising, Jenna unveils critical lessons that small business owners and marketers can apply to their own content creation efforts. The episode is structured into several key sections, each highlighting different aspects of content marketing inspired by Super Bowl ads.
1. The Power of Storytelling in Content Marketing
Timestamp: [02:30]
Jenna begins by emphasizing the significance of storytelling in content marketing. She observes that Super Bowl commercials excel in crafting compelling narratives that resonate with audiences, a strategy that can be replicated in smaller-scale content creation.
“Content marketing isn't about creating ads. It's about creating stories. It's about entertaining your audience in various ways to pull them in and make them fall in love with your brand and trust you and want to work with you.”
— Jenna Harding [02:45]
She argues that instead of focusing solely on selling a product, businesses should aim to weave their offerings into engaging stories that capture attention and foster emotional connections with the audience.
2. Avoiding the Trap of Creating Ads Instead of Content
Timestamp: [05:50]
Jenna highlights a common mistake among small business owners: inadvertently creating advertisements masquerading as content. She explains that many entrepreneurs design content pieces that feel more like traditional ads, complete with hard sales pitches and product-focused messaging.
“One of the biggest mistakes I see small business owners do when they first get into content creation is they inadvertently create ads instead of content.”
— Jenna Harding [06:10]
She advises shifting the focus from direct selling to providing value and entertainment, thereby nurturing a more genuine relationship with the audience.
3. Viewing Your Account as a Magazine, Not a Flyer
Timestamp: [10:15]
To further illustrate her point, Jenna encourages listeners to conceptualize their social media accounts as magazines rather than flyers. This analogy underscores the importance of diverse, engaging content that offers more than just promotional material.
“Consider your account a magazine, not a flyer. When you flip through a magazine, you see stories, right? You see not just product shots, but gorgeous product shots.”
— Jenna Harding [10:25]
By adopting this mindset, businesses can create a richer, more varied content portfolio that attracts and retains followers through storytelling and visual appeal.
4. The Role of Entertainment in Building Trust and Engagement
Timestamp: [14:40]
Jenna discusses how entertainment plays a crucial role in effective content marketing. She draws parallels to how Super Bowl commercials captivate audiences with humor, surprise, and creativity, thereby enhancing brand recall and trust.
“Your social media is for your people. You want to entertain them. And entertainment can look like different things. It doesn't need to look silly or goofy like mine does.”
— Jenna Harding [15:00]
By entertaining their audience, businesses can build a loyal community that feels connected to the brand beyond transactional interactions.
5. Super Bowl Commercial Trends and Their Marketing Insights
Timestamp: [18:20]
Jenna explores recent trends in Super Bowl advertising, such as the shift towards more unconventional and quirky ads. She notes that brands like Skittles and Mountain Dew have embraced weirdness to stand out in a crowded advertising space, a strategy that can inspire content creators to experiment with their own unique styles.
“In the last few years, there's this trend in TV commercials of just trying to be as weird as possible, like Skittles and Mountain Dew. All these brands that are just, like, so strange and off the wall because they're just doing whatever they can to get you to Watch their ads.”
— Jenna Harding [19:00]
This approach of differentiation through uniqueness can help smaller brands carve out distinct identities in the digital landscape.
6. Implementing the Growth, Nurture, Sales Strategy
Timestamp: [22:00]
Transitioning from lessons learned, Jenna introduces her Growth, Nurture, Sales strategy, designed to streamline and optimize content marketing efforts on platforms like Instagram. This framework divides content into three categories:
- Growth Content: Aimed at attracting new followers and increasing visibility through engaging and widely appealing posts.
- Nurture Content: Focused on building trust and deepening relationships with existing followers through informative and valuable content.
- Sales Content: Directly promoting products or services with clear calls-to-action.
“The concept here, high level is you need to be posting three different types of content on Instagram. You've got to post your growth content that gets a ton of views and gets engagement and attracts new people to you.”
— Jenna Harding [22:30]
This strategy allows for a balanced content mix where each post serves a specific purpose, reducing the pressure on every piece of content to perform multiple roles simultaneously.
7. Reducing Stress and Enhancing Enjoyment in Content Creation
Timestamp: [27:45]
Jenna shares the benefits her clients have experienced by adopting the Growth, Nurture, Sales strategy. By categorizing content, business owners can focus on what each post aims to achieve without the stress of needing every post to drive sales directly.
“A lot of people are way less stressed about Instagram in general, and they're making content because they're actually enjoying it.”
— Jenna Harding [28:00]
This approach not only makes the content creation process more enjoyable but also leads to more authentic and effective engagement with the audience.
8. Actionable Steps and Long-Term Strategy
Timestamp: [32:10]
Towards the end of the episode, Jenna provides actionable steps for listeners to implement immediately. She advises business owners to categorize each post as Growth, Nurture, or Sales to maintain intentionality and clarity in their content strategy.
“Every time you make a post, ask yourself, is my intention that this is a growth post, a nurture post, or a sales post? And let that guide you.”
— Jenna Harding [32:25]
For those seeking further guidance, Jenna promotes her Magic Marketing Machine program, which offers comprehensive support in developing consistent content strategies tailored to service-based businesses.
Conclusion
In "What Superbowl Commercials Can Teach Us About Content Marketing," Jenna Harding masterfully bridges the high-profile world of Super Bowl advertising with practical, actionable content marketing strategies suitable for small businesses. By emphasizing storytelling, entertainment, and a balanced content approach through her Growth, Nurture, Sales framework, Jenna provides listeners with valuable insights to enhance their marketing efforts and attract shiny new clients effectively.