10 Things that really waste your marketing money
There is no denying that there are costs associated in marketing your business. Even ‘free’ options such as social media have a time element and, as a busy business owner, time = money.
I have previously looked at marketing costs in my blogs ‘What are the most common mistakes small business make when it comes to marketing’ and ‘Low cost ways of promoting your business’ and I believe that you need to look very hard at your marketing expenditure in terms of the return to make sure you are getting the best bang for your buck.
With that in mind I wanted this blog to cover some of the marketing decisions I see small business owners make that really do waste money; money that could be better invested in more profitable marketing activities.
#1 Choosing special colours that cost more to reproduce
Make sure the colours you have chosen for your branding can be reproduced well whatever the print method used. Choosing colours such as silver and gold, for example, require a special spot colour (sometimes known as a fifth colour) which is an additional print cost and means that it can’t be reproduced in cost effective, short-run digital printing. Silver becomes grey and gold a distressing shade of cacky beige. Even colours like orange and green can be difficult to reproduce out of the standard digital or CYMK print processes and can look a bit sludgy.
So when deciding on colour make sure you understand the implications of producing them in terms of your marketing purse.
#2 Having no clear strategy for distributing marketing material
After seeing some brochures we had produced for a client languishing under their desk, I now always ask the question when being briefed on marketing literature, ‘How do you plan to distribute it?’ Creating the brochure or leaflet is only part of the marketing. You need to get it into the hands of your customers or prospects.
How you are planning to use it, also will impact on the format. For example if you are planning to mail the brochure larger sizes will cost more to post.
#3 Taking up offers of free design
Be wary of companies who offer free design as part of the service, whether that is a printer, sign company, newspaper or magazine. They may have internal designers but do they know your business? How long will they be allowed to spend on your design for free? Has the price been loaded to allow this free service? Do they have the necessary skills to be able to produce a high quality design?
The cost of the media space, sign, leaflet etc is just the same even if the design is bad and you could have wasted a big part of your marketing budget.
#4 Not having the resource to cope with new business leads
Be mindful of how you are going to handle the business enquiries that will be generated by your marketing activity. Will you be able to follow up on leads quickly enough, get out quotes, arrange visit and follow up?
If you have limited resources consider drip-feeding your marketing activity so your leads are manageable. Being able to quickly contact and follow up is one of the most important elements and leads that are left to go cold are a big fat waste of money.
#5 Pay Per Click advertising with a poor website
Pay per click or adwords online advertising can be a very effective way of advertising your business. A mistake that is often made, however, is to not optimise your website to get the best out of the clicks you get.
People will click on your ad if they think it provides something of interest based on their search criteria, so you really have to make sure that where they click through to fulfils on this promise and gets the response you want.
So if I searched for ‘orange hot pants in size 12’, I wouldn’t want to be dropped onto the home page of a departments store website and then have to try and find my hot pants, I want to land on the purchase page for hoptpants.
So, carry out a health check on your website and think about where you will land your valuable click traffic, you may want to create some specific landing pages to get the most out of these visits.
#6 Marketing your business with a non-business email and domain
This is something that start-ups often fall into. They are so keen to get business cards and stationery that they get things designed and printed with their Google or MSN email address. Even if you can’t afford a website yet (and I would advise you do have a website) you can still purchase your domain for a few pounds and get an email address set up with that domain.
By not doing this you undermine your credibility which can only have a negative impact on your business health and wealth.
#7 Cheap print
In the same theme then think about the quality of the print you provide. Things like the paper weight, finish and print method will all have an impact on how the print looks and feels so make sure you get the specification you need, even if it costs you a few pounds more, because poor quality print is a total waste of money.
#8 Attending trade shows and exhibitions with no follow up plan
This is linked to #4 but I think it deserves its own point as it is something that I see time and time again. Attending trade shows usually requires some pretty hefty investment and if you think your business would benefit from being there then make sure you squeeze as much opportunity out of it as possible.
Common costly mistakes include –
- Sending junior staff to man the stand because you can’t spare your experienced team. This often means they are little more than leaflet and freebie distributors and unable to pick up on potential leads and have meaningful conversations.
- Having conversations and handing out business cards but having no way of capturing leads. Once you return from the show you need a way of looking through all the contacts you have made and working out which are you hot prospects
- Not following up on prospects and contacts from the show. You need to allocate people and resource to follow up whether that is sending out information, proposals and pricing or calling them. Leads go cold very quickly so you need to make sure you swing into action on the days following the show.
- Not tracking business generated from the show. When it comes to booking for next year how will you know whether it is worth doing again? If you have a proper follow up process you should also be tracking what business has come from it and in this way making the business decision about whether to invest again becomes easy.
#9 Looking at individual activities rather than campaigns
The big brands understand marketing campaigns. A campaign will include multiple media channels, creative versions and will cross traditional, digital and social channels. Small businesses often don’t think in terms of campaigns, and even though their budgets will be much smaller, the approach still stands.
So scraping together enough budget to place a single small ad in a Trade Publication is unlikely to be effective, in fact you should carefully look at whether any one activity working in isolation will give you the desired effect, and if the answer is no, then save you marketing money.
A campaign doesn’t have to be just paid for advertising, think about social media, internal communications and PR and make sure it all works together to get the most out of the paid activities you do.
#10 Discounting when you don’t need to
I am a big fan of using pricing and discounting as a tactical marketing tool. See my blog ‘Why pricing can be one of your most powerful marketing tools’, but be careful that you don’t get yourself into a spiral of discounting that is just giving away margin and costing you profit.
Look at where you need to discount and test out new ways of doing it, If you always provide a discount, can it be money off, or can you apply a minimum order value so you protect your sales values? Can you give away product rather than cash (which has a much higher perceived than actual value)?
Be smart about it and don’t just take the easy option and you can make sure your spend on promotions is not wasted.
No business, whatever its size, can afford to waste marketing investment, I hope this list helps you avoid some of the most common ones.