Categories
Marketing

How to Prioritize Your Marketing Needs for the Better

Oftentimes we hear a marketing term, particularly those in the digital arena, see that it’s working for our competitors, and decide that we must do the same.

But are your marketing efforts costing you more than they should?

If you decided to go to the grocery store for some wine, would you take a plane? Of course not! If you wanted to get to Tokyo from London, would a car suffice? Probably not.

How can you avoid spending extra on marketing efforts that’ll eventually get you to where you want to be? The answer is simple: define your marketing goal, then pick your medium.

For example, if you’re sure your website needs SEO, but your primary goal is to make more sales right now, then doing SEO to your website shouldn’t necessarily be your first investment in marketing. Will you need SEO eventually? Yes, but SEO takes time, and if you’ve determined that your priority is to increase sales right now, then your money would be best spent elsewhere.

So how can you prioritize what you need so you pick the right place to start and don’t waste money on your marketing?

How to Prioritize Marketing Needs in Five Steps

This simple five-step process will help you narrow down your choices and determine where your budget is best spent at the moment. However, these tips will also help set you up for future digital marketing success!

Step 1: Determine the true goal of your marketing campaign.

If there’s more than one, list them in order of priority. Examples of marketing goals can be: increase online sales, increase brand awareness, grow your audience, increase brick and mortar traffic, increase phone calls, increase appointments.

Step 2: Determine your budget.

You may only have room in your budget for one priority at a time, and that’s ok. (See Pro Tip #1 below.)

Step 3: Determine your timeline to hit this goal.

If you need online sales right now, pay-per-click (PPC) marketing may be a better option than SEO in the short term. 

Step 4: Determine which mediums are designed to hit your goal.

If you need to educate your audience about a new product or service, email marketing and social media are great options. If you need to overcome a hard-to-find brick-and-mortar restaurant, a billboard on the freeway may do the trick.

Step 5: Determine what success looks like for your business.

The word “conversion” can mean a few different things in the business world. As a marketer, a conversion is a lead that your company engages with. For you, a conversion might be a sale. One company could get two new clients in one year and consider that a wild success. Others may get two new customers a day and have to shut their doors. When you want to “increase sales,” put a hard number on that. Knowing your success threshold will help you determine if you’re really making money or wasting it.

Pro Tips to Help You Even More

It’s rarely easy to define a goal, budget, and timeline for your business, as well as what your version of success is. But don’t worry, with a couple of pro tips, you’ll be on your way to a smarter marketing investment!

  • Pro Tip #1: If your marketing budget is tight (like most small business owners), pick a medium that will help you make sales in the shortest amount of time. Syphon off some of that money to reinvest and expand your marketing budget WITH INTENTION. No more “Gee, I hope this works”. Stick with the medium, expand that budget a bit more. This is a great way to see how much more to spend and then when you can set a cap for that medium.
  • Pro Tip #2: See if there’s a medium that can do double duty. For example, social media pay-per-click ads, such as Facebook ads, can both increase brand awareness and potentially make sales. This is not true for every industry, but it’s worth looking into.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having business dreams that are unachievable right now. Just remember that big dreams are achieved through a series of small goals. The amount of marketing opportunities available these days is overwhelming and can make even the most savvy and successful of business people feel lost. Keeping your efforts clear and simple is the easiest way to see if you’re on the right path.

Need help defining and prioritizing your marketing needs for the better? Schedule a free strategy session with us at GoBeyond SEO!

Categories
B2B Marketing Marketing

3 Tips On How To Save Money on Marketing Without Risking Performance

Way, way too often, marketing is a waste of money. Marketing done incorrectly and done simply for the sake of marketing uses up precious time and money, which business owners lack enough of as it is. You can be generous with your clients, but it will always serve a business well to be stingy with their resources.

Marketing is a hugely important, long-term investment in the growth of any business. However, prior to spending exorbitant amounts on marketing campaigns and agencies, do yourself a favor and exhaust your non-financial resources first. Depending on how much business you need, you may never need to invest anything more than time and energy into your marketing.

The key to marketing success and saving money on marketing is efficiency. Identify who you serve, how you serve them, and where those people spend their time. Once you figure that out, let as many of the people who you serve know by utilizing the free marketing channels available. 

1. Acquire Knowledge In Any Way Possible

Most established consultants and coaches offer a free consultation or strategy session as a lead magnet. It’s a smart, no pressure way to get new clients and figure out if people click with you. The benefit to you is that you can get free insights from a professional. The information you learn in that consultation can open your eyes to options you haven’t considered, and make an overall difference in your business planning.

If you don’t already, be sure to subscribe to marketing blogs and newsletters. New strategies abound and in this industry, you need to be “in the know”. None of us have time to scour the internet for the latest trends. Subscriptions to relevant content allow the information to come to you. 

2. Make Yourself An Authority In The Space

One guaranteed way to draw interest and a sense of trust to your business is to portray yourself as an authority in your field. Posting engaging and informative content on social media is the easiest way to do this. Through these posts, offer your audience value in the form of content and they will begin to see your content as a worthwhile use of their time. 

Don’t hesitate to apply for business awards, whether they are awards for your field, in your region, in your demographic, or for your philanthropic efforts. Be sure to vet each aware to ensure that it’s not a solicitation, but there are always several award categories for which you certainly qualify. Adding to your credentials in that way makes your business seem more reliable to potential clients.

3. Form Strategic Partnerships to Save Money on Marketing 

More businesses than you think are seeking partnerships to grow their own companies. Find people who do something complementary to what you do. For instance, real estate agents and mortgage brokers, CPAs and bookkeepers, and SEO consultants and PPC specialists all depend on each other for some aspect of their work. An effective partnership is one in which the other business’ clients need what you do and your clients need what they do. When seeking out partners, don’t overlook LinkedIn. A well-crafted, highly-selective outreach on LI can be a real game-changer. 

Free resources exist, especially in marketing. Most marketing avenues love it when you use them because you indirectly market for them as well. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Wring out every drop of it you can and you’ll be far more well-informed about what works, what doesn’t, what message your best clients respond to, and what changes to make before you ever spend a dime.

Be sure to subscribe to our blog for more insights on how to save money on marketing through tested strategies and tactics that work.

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Kristy is an Assistant & Coordinator of Awesome. She has worked extensively in academic administration and brings a varied wealth of knowledge. As a self-starter, she is ready to take on news projects and see them through to completion. Always curious, Kristy is an avid researcher and delights in the challenge of learning new skills.

When Kristy isn’t organizing or researching something, you can find her listening to a true crime podcast, re-watching How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory and coming up with some crazy shenanigan for her family’s next adventure.

5 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT KRISTY

  1. Kristy prefers the Harry Potter books over the movies. Her favorite book is The Prisoner of Azkaban and her favorite character is Luna Lovegood. Ravenclaw house. She just started her 8-year-old son on listening to the books.
  2. Kristy has a nail technician license, esthetician license, medical assisting certification, associate degree, and bachelor’s degree. She didn’t get her full cosmetology license because she can barely do her own hair, she shouldn’t be trusted with someone else’s.
  3. She doesn’t know how to gamble but is originally from Las Vegas, Nevada. She moved to Colorado three months before her 21st birthday.
  4. Her high school graduating class consisted of only 20 people.
  5. Kristy loves gift giving. One of her great joys in life is finding the “perfect” gift.
Kristy Elias