Ignoring your marketing budget for a short time can feel freeing. PPC ads? Sure! A new direct mail campaign? Why not? It’s a lot of fun until expense reports are due and you’re getting a few questions from your friends in accounting.
If you’ve blown your budget in the past, you know how easy it can be to swing right along with the pendulum the other way. You start to brush off critical marketing investments:
- Your website isn’t being updated and has out-of-date key information.
- Your social media presence is inconsistent and you haven’t engaged with consumers on those platforms for awhile.
- You’re not even sure when you last updated your strategy. You lost the trail months ago and nobody is measuring success rates anymore.
Or maybe it isn’t this drastic. Maybe you’ve just been putting off a fantastic idea for an email drip campaign or toying with plans for an Instagram contest, but haven’t pulled the trigger.
Here’s the Thing. You need to see marketing as a legitimate, valuable investment. How much is enough? While the number fluctuates a bit each year, reports from Statista show the average marketing spend hovering around 10%.
It’s much higher if you’re just starting out. New companies will need to invest about 25% of their revenue in marketing to establish brand recognition and stand out in the noise of digital marketing. As you gain footing in your market, you’ll be able to settle in closer to that 10% mark.
The critical part of this discussion is that you invest whatever budget you have in quality marketing. Here are a few good reasons why:
Quality Leads to Trust. If your audience begins to see that your blogs reliably tell them how to solve a problem or provide insight on an industry trend, they’re going to keep clicking on that post. When it’s time to make a buying decision, they will think of you first. And since you’ve already built trust, the path from interest to purchase will be shorter.
While quality in a blog is valuable information, it may look different in other formats. For instance, you might have a fantastic how-to you would like to share on social media platforms. Investing in quality might mean taking time to come up with a creative and unique approach to what you want to share.
Quality Means Consistency. Consistent marketing is applied a lot of different ways. It’s a consistent tone in your social media posts. It’s that your audience knows you will post a new piece of content every Tuesday afternoon.
Consistency is even more, though. It’s a documented marketing process that ensures your colors never look “off” on a direct mail piece. It’s how you prevent a promotion from tanking or a social post that doesn’t fit your brand. Consistency in visuals, tone and presentation are all aspects of marketing that improve when you invest in it.
How Do You Get Quality From a Limited Marketing Budget?
You may be sitting there thinking, “Yes, I’m tracking with you, but that doesn’t change how much money is available.” At SJC Marketing, we’re a small business, too, so we understand that it’s not always as simple as being convinced.
So, let’s discuss how to make the most of your budget for quality:
Set Clear Objectives. Before you launch a new campaign, jump into a rebrand or allocate some funds to PPC, it’s important to know what you’re trying to accomplish. That’s why you need to set some clear goals.
The other part of this critical step is deciding how you will know whether you have succeeded. You need the right metrics aligned with your goals. And put some thought into this; a lot of companies make the mistake of setting a goal for lead generation, for instance, and mistakenly count social media behaviors that don’t generate leads, such as comments or shares.
Prioritize What Works. If you have a limited budget, don’t spread your dollars too thin trying to be engaged on every social media platform. Find out where your audience spends the most time and focus your efforts there.
Or maybe you’ve always done a direct mail campaign in the spring, but you’ve been a little unsure how much new business stems from that campaign. Invest in a QR code that takes recipients to a specific landing page. You know you’re going to do your direct mail campaign, so why not make sure it’s effective?
Finding out what’s working may be your first step this year. Google Analytics is a great way to see solid data on your website, including where your traffic comes from and which pages are seeing the most activity.
Invest in Quality, Not Quantity. With AI tools available, it may be tempting to post more blogs, but there’s a catch. AI tends to churn out too-general, bland and boring content. You may post a lot, but your reputation for expertise and insights will be diluted. And your brand personality will get lost. In addition, when you write with AI, you are putting out content that has already been on the internet.
Instead, prioritize quality and produce less of it. You’ll see that, over time, your brand will benefit from that consistent, expert content that provides value every time.
Start by Outsourcing. You may be surprised to learn that outsourcing is a good way to get the most out of your marketing budget. You have access to a full team with expertise across a wide variety of marketing techniques: videography, social media management, Google Analytics, graphic design, web development, writing, photography and more.
If you’re a bit curious, don’t hesitate to contact us. We can grab a cup of coffee and chat about where your company is headed and whether we might be able to help. No high-pressure sales pitch, just a conversation. Let’s talk!