Where will I get the most bang for my marketing buck?
In the words of more than one wise man: “It depends”.
More specifically, it depends on your marketing goals, the nature of your market and your product, and the type and size of your company. Let’s look at some of the options.
Let’s start with the basics. Word-of-Mouth (WOM) is traditionally regarded as both the cheapest and most effective form of marketing. The enthusiast recommendation of a satisfied customer to a peer shortens the sales cycle and produces the highest close rate. Young businesses especially should focus their energies in this area. However, the potential of WOM is limited by the number of satisfied customers that you have available to leverage, and so other methods are required.
In today’s connected world, Internet marketing is a core element of most marketing programs. If your potential customers are going to conduct their product search over the Internet, then your company has to be there. Internet marketing can take two forms; paid search and organic search. With paid search you pay to appear on a search results list (think Adwords), which can be expensive. With organic search you design your website to be ranked highly by the dominant search engines (such as Google) – this can take a lot of continuous tweaking. Although Internet marketing can be costly, it doesn’t have to be expensive to be effective and overall, Internet marketing can be one of the most economical means of marketing.
However, with Internet marketing you are dependant upon your potential client finding you. It is wise to combine Internet marketing with one or more forms of Outreach marketing. This is where you target a potential customer group and proactively push your message to them. These types of programs can employ tools such as events, email marketing, direct mail marketing and print or media advertising. These days, email marketing is most widely used and print and media advertising are somewhat in disfavour.
And what about Social Media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)? It is early days yet. Many practitioners are touting the benefits, but quantification is yet to come. Whatever the benefits, social media marketing has the disadvantage of requiring a large personal time commitment. It is probably best not to over-invest in this area and to compliment social media marketing with Internet marketing and possibly some form of outreach program.
So at the end of the day, there are many possible answers to the question of what gets the most bang for the buck. One thing is for sure; a focused and well-managed marketing program built around clear objectives and with a clear message will pay for itself many times over.
What do I need to put a marketing program together?
A Marketing Program is an integrated set of activities designed to generate business. It is more than lead generation (because it includes conversion) and more than a single campaign. A Marketing Program includes:
o Clear Objectives - what are you trying to achieve?
o Focused target market - who are you trying to reach?
o Market research – factual knowledge about the customer and their needs
o Clear and compelling Message - what do you want them to know?
o Channel to the customer - a way to get your message to the customer (e.g. email, Internet, radio, etc.)
o A Call to Action - an offer or other stimulus to engage the customer
o Sales support (training, etc) – readiness to follow-up on opportunities
o Metrics - to assess results and facilitate continuous improvement
How do I ensure that my marketing investment gets results?
Marketing is not rocket science and it is not magic. Done right, marketing is a “cause and effect” process of getting the right message or offer in font of the right* audience at the right time – and then closing the sale.
What can go wrong? A lot.
The first challenge is to have a marketing program that is actually designed to produce the results that you want. Creating a well-designed program requires knowledge, creativity and discipline, and it is not a trivial matter. However, if you have a product for which there is a real market, then a well-designed marketing program should allow you to reach that market.
But assuming your program is well designed, what else do you need to worry about?
Lack of follow-up is a common problem. If you do not have a means to close the sales opportunities created by your marketing program, then the time, effort and expense have been wasted. A surprising number of companies do not follow-up on the leads created by their marketing programs. Usually this is because the sales force is not aligned with the marketing initiative.
So how do you ensure that you get your money’s worth from your marketing investment?
First, invest the time to create a marketing program that is specifically designed to produce the results you want to achieve.
Second, ensure successful execution of the program.
Third, make sure that the sales forces is aligned and that sales leads are pursued.
Fourth, measure the results of the campaign so that you will know if you achieved your results (the old maxim “you can’t improve what you can’t measure” applies to marketing too)
Fifth, learn from each marketing campaign so that the next one can be even better.
Marketing is closer to a science than to magic. And with investments in good design, appropriate follow-up and continuous improvement, you can ensure that your marketing program will produce results.
* Note - Marketing is not about getting the “wrong” people to buy your product. We have always been amused by the concept of “accidental market share” – this is when a customer buys your product believing it is something else. At the end of the day, these customer relationships do not tend to end well.
What can go wrong when investing in marketing?
A lot.
The first challenge is to have a marketing program that is actually designed to produce the results that you want. Creating a well-designed program requires knowledge, creativity and discipline, and it is not a trivial matter. However, if you have a product for which there is a real market, then a well-designed marketing program should allow you to reach that market.
But assuming your program is well designed, what else do you need to worry about?
Lack of follow-up is a common problem. If you do not have a means to close the sales opportunities created by your marketing program, then the time, effort and expense have been wasted. A surprising number of companies do not follow-up on the leads created by their marketing programs. Usually this is because the sales force is not aligned with the marketing initiative.
So how do you ensure that you get your money’s worth from your marketing investment?
First, invest the time to create a marketing program that is specifically designed to produce the results you want to achieve.
Second, ensure successful execution of the program.
Third, make sure that the sales forces is aligned and that sales leads are pursued.
Fourth, measure the results of the campaign so that you will know if you achieved your results (the old maxim “you can’t improve what you can’t measure” applies to marketing too)
Fifth, learn from each marketing campaign so that the next one can be even better.
Marketing is closer to a science than to magic. And with investments in good design, appropriate follow-up and continuous improvement, you can ensure that your marketing program will produce results.
* Note - Marketing is not about getting the “wrong” people to buy your product. We have always been amused by the concept of “accidental market share” – this is when a customer buys your product believing it is something else. At the end of the day, these customer relationships do not tend to end well.
