It’s obvious that the Super Bowl is good for bartenders and bookies, but a surprisingly wide range of other businesses also benefit from the annual Super Bowl event. Some of these examples might surprise you, and they should get you thinking about how your business might benefit from Super Bowl XLIV.

Even if it has nothing to do with football, just about any business can find a Super Bowl tie-in with a little creativity. It can be as simple as redecorating a store or revising your web design to play up the Super Bowl theme.  It may involve showing how your products can enhance a viewer’s enjoyment of the big game. Or, it may involve using search marketing to promote football-related items or memorabilia for either Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts who are now headed back to the NFL title game for the second time in four years and their fourth Super Bowl in franchise history or Drew Brees and the Saints who have helped revive the city of New Orleans that was devastated by hurricane Katrina four years ago.

The following are some examples of how businesses have found ways to benefit from previous Super Bowl events:

1. The Super Bowl of snacking. Super Bowl Sunday is the top day of the year for snack food consumption. One company alone ramps up production of potato and tortilla chips by 10 million pounds leading up to the game. In all, food and beverage sales jumped by $261 million leading up to the 2009 Super Bowl, compared to an average week. It doesn’t all have to be about snack foods, however. As an example of how business owners can broaden the football tie-in, caterers have also found a profitable niche serving Super Bowl events.  
2. Referees watch replays on a tiny screen, but other people prefer something bigger. While the ref is still under the hood peering at that miniature screen, viewers at home have already made their minds up about the call, because they are sitting back in comfort and watching the game on a wide-screen HDTV. In 2009, retailers sold 61 percent more HDTVs in the week before the Super Bowl than in the previous week. The business lesson goes beyond television equipment–an event like the Super Bowl can be used to create a perceived deadline that prompts buying behavior.
3. Memorabilia lets fans make the most out of their bragging rights. When either the New Orleans Saints or Indianapolis Colts wins the Super Bowl XLIV, the fans of one of the franchises will wear the victory on his or her sleeve–and coffee mug, license plate, or anything else that can be stamped with a team’s logo for 2010 and beyond. Don’t feel restricted by whether or not an item has anything to do with watching football. In fact, the more unconventional it is for an item to carry a football logo, the more in demand it might be. And this years super bowl featues two teams with potent offenses to make it a spectacle worth watching and remembering for a life time.
4. What’s an armchair quarterback without an armchair? Furniture retailers also benefit from the Super Bowl, as fans seek a larger couch to accommodate their guests, or the perfect recliner from which to watch the game. This line of thinking can be stretched to promote sales of any household item that is used when entertaining. With two hall of fame quarterbacks – Peyton Manning of the Colts and Drew Brees of the Saints managing the game, a new reclining armchair for all want to be NFL quarterbacks will most likely be the hottest selling item for Super Bowl XLIV.
5. Some women know how to take a man’s mind off of football. A racy Victoria’s Secret ad during the Super Bowl once drew 1.2 million visitors to their Web site. After all, what better way to celebrate victory or take the sting out of losing? The point is, even a product as far removed from football as lingerie can use the Super Bowl as a promotional focal point and boost sales to kick off the new year earnings.

How Your Business Can Benefit from Super Bowl XLIV

Here are some quick tips on using the Super Bowl XLIV to benefit your business:

1. Highlight items for use while watching the game. Get creative about this–it doesn’t have to be an obvious fit like televisions and snack food. It can be as simple as Peyton Manning and Drew Brees quarterback dolls that can be used by the opposing fans to get into the game at this years Super Bowl parties.
2. Revamp your website design to feature a Super Bowl theme. Incorporate some football-related content for either the Indianapolis Colts or the New Orleans Saints teams to play on interest generated by this years game.
3. Predict the Super Bowl XLIV winner between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints and plan on putting  the winner’s logo on your products on the night of the game. It’s actually been done with coffins, so there really are no limits!
4. Create Super Bowl promotions. Look at your products and services from a football perspective, so you can do things such as tweaking your pay per click campaigns to tie into Super Bowl-related terms, or using football trivia and fun facts to draw people to your Web site - do you know how many super bowls the Saints have won in their franchise history? Has a rookie coach ever taken an NFL team to the Super Bowl? If you don’t have an ecommerce website, get an online merchant account today and provide online credit card processing capabilities on your website.
5. Use promotions tied to the final score to get customers to return after the game. This can stretch the benefit of the Super Bowl out by a few extra days and weeks, and prolong your sales as we try and recover from the deepest recession since the 1930s Great Depression.
6. Use temp staffing and call center outsourcing to ramp up capacity. Don’t let capacity constrain you from taking maximum advantage of the promotional potential of Super Bowl  XLIV.  Temporary staffing, telemarketing and call center companies can provide you the flexible capacity to handle the surge in volume during the next two weeks.