A client recently asked, “I don’t have a formal marketing budget, so how much should our company spend on marketing?”
There is no simple answer because all companies have different marketing goals, different target audiences and staffing varies for sales and marketing follow up.
Ideally, good marketing helps to bring pre-qualified customers to your sales team, who then complete the sales process and close the sale. But the reality is that most companies spend a great deal of time, effort and money marketing, but spend little time tracking and analyzing. They know exactly what they are spending but may have no idea about how their message is being received, what strategies are really working and what sales were a direct result of their marketing effort.
Companies who clearly define their marketing strategy, set realistic goals and marketing budgets, then track the results always seem to have better control over their marketing efforts, and are able to make changes quickly in response to market changes or changes in strategy by their competition.
Step 1: Budget
First, figure out what you can afford to spend per month for the next three months without negatively affecting your company’s cash flow. Then, create a simple marketing plan that gives you the most effective return on your marketing dollars. Usually this means determining the best way to reach the greatest number of pre-qualified prospects for the least amount of money.
Step 2: Plan and Measure
Carefully measure the effectiveness of your marketing. Promotions that use codes, coupons or other means to track responses to the campaign are best great since they help you to track responses. E-mails, telephone calls, website traffic and conversions of website traffic to actual leads must be tracked and measured in order to determine what is effective, or not.
Step 3: Analyze
Analyze your marketing results to determine which marketing strategy or marketing message is working best. A high response rate may be good, but a fewer number of more qualified leads will usually be better. As you follow up on leads ask them what they liked about your marketing message or the way the message was presented.
Step 4: Refine and Perfect
Refine your marketing message and focus on marketing campaigns and messages that work, repeating Step 2 and Step 3 at end the end of each quarter. You can experiment with increasing your marketing budget each quarter to reach more prospective customers. By determining which strategy or campaign works best, over the next few months, shift more of your budget into the marketing strategy that’s reaching your target market and bringing you the results you want.
Five tips to make tracking easier
1) Simplify your marketing efforts. Focus on one theme per quarter but do try variations of your marketing message. Different graphics, images, and colors may contribute to different responses in recipients. Be sure to track which version customers respond to better.
2) Centralize your lead results. Even if you different people in different departments responding to leads, make sure you centralize data collection so everyone involved will track and record data in one place. Relying on estimates or monthly meetings to try and determine which what strategy is working can be counter productive, especially if you have a campaign that flops and you need to change your message immediately.
3) Analyze what works and why. And find out what does not work and why. If you’re not getting the response you had hoped for with a new promotion or message, ask your prospects why and determine what’s at fault. Is the message not clear? Is the media appropriate? Does your offer or message hit any “hot” buttons?
4) Create a call to action. Does your offer have a time limitation and a call to action? Don’t just rely on the offer itself to prompt a response by the recipient. Make your prospects want to respond right away to the offer. Have a respond by date or put a time limitation so they can’t wait for more than a few days to respond.
5) Refine your marketing message. Sometimes “great” ideas don’t result in a big response. Remember that you can refine your marketing message in order to get a greater response or change the message graphically so you get noticed instead of lost with all the other offers your market may be receiving.
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