(If your marketing isn’t, then you’re doing it wrong)
Chips are cheap. Real cheap! Depending on the Fish & Chip shop you go to, the minimum can be as little as $1.20. That’s cheap!
That’s about how much your marketing should really cost you.
Okay, so there might be an initial need to fork out some cash but by the time the dust has settled, you should have all that cash back and then some.
You see, your marketing shouldn’t cost you anything. If your marketing is smart, targeted and effective you should make a healthy profit. Your marketing shouldn’t be viewed as an expense.
- Measure the response to every marketing technique you implement
- Measure the number of enquiries it generates
- Measure the number of sales it pulls in
I once did a marketing plan for a client who ran a decent sized retail business. His two- (2) major advertising expenses were:
- Yellow Pages – $45,000 pa
- Full page ad in a state-wide magazine
The first thing I did in his business was survey his customers and ascertained where they first heard of the business (I also went and surveyed his main competitions customers – found exactly the same results).
The results were this:
- They saw his sign
Something like 95% of customers in his industry live within 5 km of the business they use.
I can’t remember the exact number of surveys (something like 400 rings a bell) we did, but not one person had found him through the Yellow Pages. And only 2 had ever read the magazine he was advertising in.
We cut his Yellow Pages ad down to the bare minimum and cancelled the magazine ad. That very simple survey saved him $70,000.
Although it’s not always that simple to measure the impact of your marketing, you have to try mighty hard to pinpoint where your customers are finding you from.
People loved our TV ads… d’oh!
I once ran radio ads for a private hospital’s emergency room. Our assessment surveys found that 25% of people heard about the emergency room from our TV ads.
The unfortunate part there was we had never, ever had TV ads!
Radio ad impact will often show up as ‘word of mouth’ being identified more often as a choice influencer. People think they heard about your business from a friend, when in fact it was the radio being on in the car!)
The message I’m trying to push here is to measure your marketing impact.
Sure, it’s not easy to do, but being in business is tough – you need every edge you can get.
Good luck!
Cheers
