As a business owner, sometimes it feels as if you have a non-stop flow of cash coming out of your business but not enough flowing back in. Marketing your business is a continuous effort that your business should invest in, but for some, it can be hard to justify spending on your marketing budget. 

Why Invest?

Strive to Be Unique

Ask yourself: Why should customers choose my business over my competitors? Investing in a good marketing campaign can help distinguish what makes your business different from others. When you invest in marketing, you can help communicate these key messages with consistency and clarity to not look like everyone else. 

Increase Brand Awareness

The biggest reason why you should invest in marketing is to help build brand awareness of your business. It provides business owners with a way to get the word out about what they stand for, and their products and services offered, to get their brand in front of their target audience. 

In today’s marketing, we are able to target by specific location, even if someone was at that specific location up to 2 years ago. Sometimes, as consumers, we think our phones are listening to us because we see an advertisement for a product we were just thinking about. These advertising avenues are part of your marketing and a great tool to get your name out to crowds that may not see your storefront every day. 

Increase Sales

If you can’t bring in customers, you won’t be able to make money. This is why it’s so important, especially for new businesses, to initially budget for branding, an online presence such as a website, and search engine optimization. People need to be able to find you! Once you start telling your audience about your services and the solutions to their problems, your sales will increase.  

Protect Against Uncontrollable Changes

If you know a certain period of the year when your business sees a decrease in sales, you can create marketing campaigns to help influence sales around those times. Introduce sales and products that might be more suitable to the customer then. 

Investing in marketing when business is good helps protect your company against unforeseen changes in the marketplace. When your business faces things such as changes in tax code or natural disasters, the first instinct is to pass it along to the cost of your consumers. However, if they are used to paying a certain price, you will have to find a way to absorb some of these costs.  

• Employment issues – the brand awareness generated from ongoing marketing programs helps ensure you have the best quality people working for you. Your marketing and brand awareness campaigns will help acquire new employees and ensure current ones stick around.
• Decreased consumer spending – get smart about your customer’s problems and the specific solution your product provides. When you’re well positioned to continue connecting with and selling to customers who feel they must have your product, they will look to your brand, no matter how much money they’re trying to save.

There are so many reasons why you should invest in marketing. A few more are…

• Helps customers find your business.
• Creates an emotional connection with your customer.
• Inspires your team.
• The ability to get to know your customers.

Marketing is an Investment in the Long-Term Health of Your Company

How Much Should I Invest?

No matter how many effective marketing strategies exist, it is impossible to invest in all of them at once. Your business or marketing team should strategize the most appropriate marketing campaigns that fit your business. 

When deciding on a budget, you should consider not only how much you can afford to spend overall, but what is the return you may get from this? There may be an immediate return, but sometimes it takes time to gain momentum. You are planting the seeds for more exposure and for potential customers to fall in love with your products or services. It is crucial to keep sales goals in mind and consider all avenues to get there. Either way it will be an investment of time, effort and money. By investing in marketing strategies that work (i.e. work with a professional team who knows the industry standards, trends and guidelines) you are much more likely to succeed and SEE the return on investment, while meeting your sales goals. 

When we talk about the return of investment, or ROI, we refer to a way to figure out how many sales we have to close (profit we have to produce) in order to justify an expense. This is particularly relevant in marketing. We want to know that our campaigns are working for us, but how can we tell? When working out a campaign budget, consider how many people your campaign may possibly reach. Then we set goals on how many sales we may potentially get, based on previous data and market research. If you then manage to achieve these goals, you recover your investment from the new sales. Moreover, if you manage to retain the customers for repeat sales or gain additional sales from your campaign, your ROI will be high, and your investment is worth it! In some cases, the amount of effort/investment is relatively low in relation to the BIG return that will come from it. 

Return on Investment or Return on Costs is a ratio between net income and investment. A high ROI means the investment’s gains compare favorably to its cost. 

Keep Results in Mind

Strategic decision making, based on data, is necessary in the corporate world. Your ROI is always relevant, as well as your past efforts. Go back in time and review what has previously worked and what has not. How did your ROI look?

After each campaign, decide whether or not you saw the results to meet your goals. If it fell short, try tweaking the narrative or the deliverable method. Perform more research! Tracking metrics with the help of good tools is essential to generate accurate reports and help make the best decisions. A good way to do that is by using ROI calculators. See how you can build one and the benefits of it!

 

If you need assistance in deciphering how much to allocate towards your marketing budget, give us a call. When you choose to work with us, you’ll get a team of experts who can strategize with you to pick the best marketing solution that works for your business.