It’s a common adage that you need to “spend money to make money,” and that’s definitely true in the context of marketing. But spending money excessively or blindly isn’t necessarily going to benefit you. Money needs to be spent wisely and efficiently if you want to be successful.
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How do you spend money efficiently in your marketing department?
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Check with Your Leadership Team Before You Spend Money
Making better marketing decisions for your business necessitates choosing good leaders to follow your directives and achieve your objectives. Ideally, you’ll have a dedicated Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) in place. This person will have the knowledge and experience necessary to achieve better results for your organization while simultaneously spending less money on its behalf.
If you can’t afford a dedicated CMO, or if you just need some extra support, you can utilize a fractional CMO. A fractional CMO functions much like a dedicated CMO, but with much more flexibility. You’ll hire a fractional CMO as a contractor for an arrangement that works for your needs. A fractional CMO typically works on a given project, for a given length of time, or under conditions as negotiated. It’s a cost-effective way to get access to the expertise of a CMO without formally hiring one. What’s more, this is a great way to get some outsider perspective on what your business is doing right and wrong as you spend money on marketing.
Rely on These Keys to Spending Money Wisely in a Marketing Department
If you want to spend money more effectively in the context of your marketing strategy, these are some of your most important objectives:
Master Your Audience Understanding
Through objective market research, you can better understand your target audience. It’s arguable that better understanding your target audience is the most important thing you can do to improve your marketing effectiveness.
If you understand how your audience receives and digests information, you can choose much more appropriate channels for reaching them. Moreover, if you understand the values and thought processes of your target audience, you can persuade them much more easily. However, if you’re only relying on whims and intuition to reach your target audience effectively, no amount of money you spend will be enough to accomplish your objectives. Accordingly, your highest priority should be mastering your conceptions of your target customers.
Dig Deep into Your Competition Before You Spend Money on Marketing
It’s also a good idea to dig deep into competitive research. Better understanding your competitors and their marketing strategies can help you brainstorm more effective tactics for reaching your own portion of this shared audience. Additionally, better understanding your competitors means you’ll be able to differentiate your business and position it as uniquely valuable. Highlighting your unique differentiators is one of the best ways to stand out in a crowded market.
Do Your Due Diligence Before Investing in Any Tactic
Before you invest in anything related to marketing or advertising, you need to understand it thoroughly. Blindly chasing fads or leveraging tactics just because they’re widely discussed isn’t a good approach. You should have clear reasoning for why a tactic is going to benefit your organization before you spend any money on it.
Choose Free and Inexpensive Channels and Platforms
That said, it’s often a good idea to invest in free and inexpensive channels and platforms. When you do, your risk of loss is much lower. For example, claiming social media profiles for your organization is usually free, and you can usually make organic posts for free as well. Strategies such as email marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are also comparatively inexpensive, with potentially massive returns.
Prioritize Return on Investment (ROI) Whenever You Spend Money
Your ROI is arguably the best measure of your marketing effectiveness. This metric will help you determine how much you’re earning for your organization with each dollar you spend in a given context. If a strategy has a positive ROI, it’s probably worth keeping, though obviously, some channels and strategies will yield a higher ROI than others.
Start Narrow and Expand Gradually
Keep your focus as narrow as possible during the early stages of your development, prioritizing limited target audiences and concentrated messaging. You can always expand in the future when you have more experience.
Conduct Experiments as You Spend Money
Experiments are the best way to learn what works and what doesn’t. Conduct experiments early and aggressively if you want to gather more functional information for future campaigns.
Continuously Review Data and Improve
In line with this, make it a point to continuously review data from your marketing campaigns and form insights that allow you to meaningfully improve. The best marketers are constantly evolving.
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Conclusion
Spending money effectively on marketing isn’t always easy. There are now hundreds of marketing and advertising strategies to consider and countless variables to factor into your equations. But with better leadership and superior planning, you should be in a much better position to succeed.
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