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Marketing Tips | November
Tip 11 Get the most out of your budget
7 ways to maximise your marketing budget
You’ve set your marketing goals and worked out the budget you need. You’re raring to go, but before you do, these seven tips will help you make your budget go further. Whether you own your business or are the in-house marketing manager, you’ll want to ensure your budget is delivering the results you need, and there’s no wastage. So how do you achieve this?
- Be clear on your goals
It’s not enough to just set your goals; you need to stay focused on achieving them.
Keep them visible and don’t get distracted from them. Your marketing goals will contribute directly to your overall business goals, and your marketing budget needs to be focused on activities that will help you achieve these goals. The critical thing is to stick to your goals; anything that doesn’t directly or indirectly contribute to them is a distraction.
- Be super-targeted
Poor targeting can be a real drain on a marketing budget. Be crystal clear about who you are targeting and understand why they would be interested in your brand. To do this, you need to get to know your audience.
Start with your existing customer base, find out why they choose you over your competitors. Build up a profile of them; it’s not enough to say you target families with young children. While this may be true, you’re not the only one, thousands of brands do. Dig deeper. What characteristics does your audience have that make your brand more appealing to them? What problems do you solve for your customers?
It can take some time and research to get this right, but it’s worth it in the long-run as you will avoid targeting people who will never become customers. You can focus your budget on targeting the market segments that you know are more likely to buy from you.
- Don’t neglect your existing customers
It costs more to acquire new customers than it does to increase revenues from your existing customers.
If you have a database of customers, are you using it to increase loyalty with your existing customers? Do you know which of your customers are genuine fans of your brand and those who aren’t so engaged with you? If you can start to identify those fans, you can run specific offers for this group based on referring new customers to your business.
If you don’t have a database of customers, it might be time to think about requesting customer sign-ups to your email or print newsletter (within the confines of GDPR). Building a list of customers is a great way to keep in touch with your customers. But, don’t overmarket to them, you need to get the balance right.
- Think long-term
Marketing should be viewed as an investment in your business, rather than a cost. But, marketing is often the first budget to be cut when times are tough. This short-term approach can be disastrous.
Have you heard the story of Kelloggs during the great depression? The cereal market was a relatively new sector in the 1920s and there were two main competitors - Kelloggs and Post. The depression hit and Post did what many businesses do in tough times - they cut back on marketing. Kelloggs, doubled their radio advertising spend and launched the Rice Krispies brand. Do you ever have a bowl of Post for breakfast? I’m guessing not!
While this example is from a long time ago, it’s still relevant today. It’s important to remember that the marketing activity you run now contributes not only to achieving your short-term goals, but it also builds value in your brand for the long-term.
- Don’t overpay for marketing services
If you’re outsourcing any of your marketing, make sure you are working with people who have the right skills and will deliver what you need. For example, if you’re outsourcing design, make sure you see the designer’s portfolio and ask to speak to other clients.
When it comes to paying for marketing services, make sure you understand exactly what you’re paying for. For example, if you’re paying for design, make sure the fee includes transfer of all artwork to you. It’s always worth getting comparable quotes, but while you don’t want to overpay, you also don’t want to go super-cheap and hire someone who doesn’t have the right experience. Afterall a professional might be expensive, but an amateur can cost a fortune!
- Review and refine
Measure the performance of your marketing. Keep a close eye on what’s working well and what’s not. Test your campaign messaging, small tweaks to messaging and creative can have a big impact on results.
Remember though that there will be some things that take time before you see results, for example, if you have low brand awareness in your target market you will need to run your advertising and marketing campaigns consistently. You will also see that customers may need several ‘touchpoints’ with your brand before they become customers; for example, they may have awareness from seeing your adverts in Primary Times but they may actually ‘respond’ to an offer through an email or a Facebook post. It’s key that you understand this when reviewing marketing performance as you could easily switch off an activity that is performing.
- Don’t get distracted by the latest ‘shiny new thing’
Marketing moves so fast. There’s always some new tool or channel to help you target customers. And with it comes lots of hype about why you should be incorporating the latest ‘shiny new thing’ into your marketing. Keep an open mind about using the latest tool or technology, but don’t see everything new as the ‘silver bullet’ to solve all your marketing problems. Stay focused on your customers, your marketing goals and the marketing tactics that work for you and your brand.
By following these steps, you are more likely to generate a strong return on your marketing spend, allowing you to invest further in your business. And that’s what good marketing is all about.