What Can $2.7 Million Buy You in Content?

Not that we all have marketing budgets to support a 30 second ad spot during Super Bowl 42 at an average of $2.7 million, but I started to think of how much great content could be bought with that kind of money. Here are just some interesting facts about how much you can buy in content initiatives for that kind of investment.

• A turnkey 32-page, 4-color custom print magazine delivered to 50,000 customers and prospects will run you about $1.25 to $2 per copy (depending on the amount of photography, but including original editorial). Add in about 40 cents per copy for postage, and you are talking about $125,000 for each issue, all expenses in.  For that price, you could get approximately 22 individual issues of your magazine created for the same price as a 30 second Super Bowl ad. If you had a quarterly distribution frequency, it would get you five and a half years of regular communication with your customers. The best part...all that great content can be repurposed on your website or digital magazine. Wow!
• According to the APA, consumers spend an average of 25 minutes per issue of a custom print magazine. So, for your money, you'd get almost 10 hours of engagement per customer.

• Into video?  A high production value, two minute YouTube-type video could run you between 10 to 20k. Distribution through your website and through video sharing sites like YouTube or PhotoBucket is free. Instead of your 30 second ad, you can get between 135 and 270 video shorts. Just think of all the ways you could promote and integrate these ads into your overall marketing plan. The great part is, if the videos are relevant and interesting to your target audience, they should ultimately get watched.

• How about a sponsored webcast? Webcasts produced in partnership with media companies typically run anywhere from $7k to $40k for b2b markets.  Let's take the average at $15k per webcast. For your $2.7 million, you can deliver 180 webcasts to your marketplace.  At $30 per lead, that would get you 90,000 leads.

• Maybe you are into something a little simpler, like a white paper. A turnkey, 3,000 to 5,000 word white paper with complete design could run you about $10,000. With 270 white papers, your company would be the white paper king.

• Let's say that one of your key initiatives is article marketing. At 500 words and $1 per word to pay an expert editor, you can get 5,400 articles written for you and your company on all sorts of educational topics.

Just something to think about the next time you are deciding to go with traditional ad placement versus a content initiative. Remember, the content you create can be leveraged to have a much longer shelf life than just traditional ad space. When you are looking to make a decision between a number of marketing initiatives, be sure to take that into account.

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Comments

[Michael Buller]

Joe:
Great point. And if you crunch numbers a different way, you get the same result. Take those 10 hours of engagement for a custom print magazine and multiply it by the 50,000 readers and you get 30 million minutes of exposure (just to make up some stats). By comparison, take the 1/2 minute exposure of a Super Bowl Ad and multiply it by the 45.85 million homes watching it (assuming they didn't TiVo the ad) and you get 22.925 million minutes of exposure.

[Michael Buller]

Of course, if you use a 90+ million viewership, then the numbers start coming out a bit differently. Anyway, it's just a fun exercise for what is kind of an apples-to-oranges comparison. But I still agree with your point that there are a lot of alternative ways to spend the $2.7 million.

[Joe Pulizzi, Junta42]

Interesting thoughts Michael. It's also fun to think about what the value of exposure is - Custom content someone is engaging in vs. an ad.

jp

[Eamon]

I congratulate you on a great blog. I believe that content is going to be one of the big winners of 2008 (and, although SEO, will continue to be important, its importance is certainly in decline).