Improve Your Marketing Results Regardless of Your Budget

Written by Michael Fleischner

Saturday, 04 April 2009 02:25

When times get tough, marketing budgets seem to be the first thing to be impacted. This is generally the case because upper management doesn't see a direct return for the dollars being spent. This is unfortunate but the fact of the matter is that many marketing professionals have not done a good job of measuring the effectiveness of their marketing results. And as a result, their marketing dollars are seen as unnecessary.

The good news is that as the economy struggles, advertising, direct marketing, and other forms of promotion can be negotiated. Long gone are the days of $20 CPM's. Keep in mind that everyone is struggling and as a result, you can often get a better price on what you've been purchasing.

If you want to begin the process of making your marketing budget stretch, then start with a complete review of your previous year's marketing spend. You need to account for each campaign and each component within the campaign. For example, if you take a direct marketing piece that you may have sent to a target group, what was involved? Printing? Paper? Distribution? Are you using a single vendor or multiple vendors? If you were to do the same campaign today, which vendors would be willing to lower their prices? Map out your campaigns and resources then begin the negotiation process.

Once you've reviewed your marketing campaigns, take a closer look at your online spend. Any online marketing campaign has profitable and unprofitable aspects to it. As yourself where you spend has been most effective. Reallocate your budget to the successful campaigns or others like it. Now it the time to pause those campaigns that just haven't proven themselves successful. This reduces your expense and improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

After a thorough review of your marketing expenses, your are in a much better position for determining how you can group promotions to lower costs and improve sell through. Consider how you might take advantage of your current campaigns. Do you ask customers to forward a promotion to a friend? Are you communicating to your mailing list on a regular basis? Are you collecting information about your consumers that can help you customize your campaigns and improve conversion rates? Think through each touch point and how you might improve your sales.

In order to survive during this difficult time and still be successful with a smaller budget, you really need to consider how you can manage the balance between a smaller marketing spend and the need for increased results. Sticking with the marketing basics is paramount. Focus on the needs of your market and offers that get people to respond.

Once you have found the campaigns that really produce positive results, consider how you can make them even more effective. Viral and social media, encouraging others to take advantage of your offers, is a great method for generating results and doesn't cost a lot. When marketers see something that's working, they often leave it alone. If you have specific campaigns that produce results, focus on expanding the campaigns and scaling them. This ensure that you are creating a sustainable campaign that gives you what you're looking for in difficult times - greater results with a smaller budget.

About the Author:

Are you ready to take your marketing to the next level? Learn from the Internet marketing experts at MarketingScoop who can guide you on your path to marketing enlightenment. Ask our marketing experts any marketing related concern and access FREE marketing resources.

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