Thinking of Pulling the Plug on Marketing Spend? Here’s Why You Shouldn’t.
If you own a company, you think about money. Plain and simple. You also probably spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect balance between bringing in new revenue and your ever growing business expenses. As a small business ourselves, we get it.
We work with a lot of smaller companies, and one thing that always makes us cringe is when they decide to pinch pennies by cutting their marketing budgets. We know marketing can be expensive, but we’ve seen firsthand how impactful a well-executed campaign can be. Let’s take a closer look at why you should think twice about nixing your marketing budget.
Why is Marketing Important?
The ultimate goal of any marketing strategy is to bring people to your business’ doorstep. If you don’t have a healthy flow of new leads coming in, then you don’t have a business! Even if you save money by not spending on marketing, will those savings be worth it if you eventually lose too many customers or clients with no new leads waiting to take their place?
Here are some of the top ways marketing can benefit your company:
Reach new audiences and potential customers/clients
Grow a repository of fans and potential clients who are excited to work with you
Connect with dream customers/clients
Gain insight into how your industry brings in new customers
Pinpoint where your customers are coming from
Boost your search engine results on Google and other search engines
Earn customer trust and loyalty
Build a strong business reputation
Get to know your target audience better
Boost sales and reduce the amount of time needed to close your sales by advertising to those who are more likely to buy
Sure, you can accomplish all the points in the bullet list on your own, but without an experienced marketer on your side, it’ll take twice as long and will likely produce half the results.
The Power of Digital Marketing
Technology has changed the marketing industry massively—digital marketing is now just as if not more important than in-person and print marketing. Digital marketing can include search engine optimization, content marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, email marketing, lead generation, advertising, marketing technology, and sales. Having a line item in your budget for digital marketing is non-negotiable in our opinion. If you need some concrete proof, here are some industry statistics to highlight its importance:
79% of consumers use the internet to find information about local businesses—a digital marketing strategy makes it possible to be found easily by searchers.
56% of marketers who leverage blogging say it's effective and 10% say it generates the biggest return on investment.
82% of marketers actively use content marketing.
More than half of all businesses are planning to increase their Instagram budget, and almost half are planning to do the same for Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
64% of small businesses say their email copy is effective or very effective.
45% of small businesses with effective or very effective email copy have average open rates of 26% or higher.
Email marketing has the highest return on investment for small businesses.
Making Room for a Marketing Budget
Rather than looking at your marketing budget and saying “this is the quickest area I can cut in,” look for other areas where you have inefficiency and see if you can cut back there first. Maybe you have subscriptions to administrative or business management platforms that you no longer use? Do work with a vendor that could be cut out? Are you throwing expensive company retreats that maybe don’t have to be quite so expensive?
If you have an accountant or business coach, try consulting with them for their expert opinion on how you can cut costs and reduce any inefficiencies. And remember, if you do end up hiring a marketing team, you’re paying not just for the blog posts and social media captions, but for that team of humans’ expertise and the hard hours they’ll be putting into your marketing efforts.
Making Sure You Implement the Right Marketing Strategies
Hopefully we’ve managed to convince you that you need a marketing budget. But what should you spend it on? Should you do your marketing yourself or hire a team to do it for you?
If you choose to take it on yourself, you’ll need to focus on some of the key pillars that make up a successful marketing plan, such as:
Posting organically and/or running ads on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or any other social media platform
Creating compelling and beautifully designed emails or newsletters that showcase your products or services and get sent out to your email list on a regular basis
Plugging in the right keywords in the backend of your website, in blog posts, and in some social captions in order to drive traffic to your business
Can include blogs, emails, website copy, white papers, e-books, and more that really sell your brand and capture the attention of your audience
We know—it’s a lot. That's why we recommend outsourcing your marketing to a professional team if you’re serious about getting a return on your investment. You’ll get the rewards of a strategic plan without the headache. Reach out to us if you want to learn more about how a marketing strategy could benefit your business! We offer complimentary consultations because we believe in finding the right for you and for us.