If you haven’t given your marketing budget consideration lately, it may be time to take a closer look at it. If you’re not getting the results you want or expect, it could be because you’re allocating money to the wrong things. Here are five ways to make sure you’re not wasting your hard earned dollars.
1. Don’t invest too much in traditional marketing techniques, like having hard copies of posters printed.
Also referred to as outbound marketing, this type of marketing won’t deliver the return-on-investment you’re after. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, will deliver the results you’re looking for. Inbound marketing is when you create something that customers want and entice them to come to you instead of going after them. This could be writing a white paper and then running a Google Ad so people can find it when they search for something specific.
2. Never, ever purchase social media followers.
Anybody can setup a social media profile and buy followers, but in this case, quantity is not better than quality. Social media followers are only important when they actually engage with your content. If you have 100 followers and a majority of them like, share and comment on your content, that’s better than 1,000 followers who never even notice when you post something new.
3. Hone in on your target, especially when it comes to ads on social media platforms, like Etsy and Facebook.
You can really stretch your money if you’ve narrowed your audience. This is especially important when it comes to local businesses who only serve a specific area. What’s the use in spending $100 to reach an international audience when just $10 will reach more people in a specific location?
4. Stop spending money to build or run a website that isn’t mobile-friendly.
Consumers today use their mobile devices to search online, go shopping, access their favorite websites and more. Basically, anything that people used to do on a computer is now being done via a mobile device. If your website doesn’t convert to mobile viewing, you need someone to build you a new site or to convert your current site. In the meantime, don’t waste time keeping up a site that a huge percentage of customers won’t be able to utilize. Search around for a new host and hold off on monetizing blog posts for the time being.
5. The worst thing you could do with your budget is spread it too thin.
If you have money designated to advertising on five different social media sites, it’s probably not making much of an impact anywhere. Figure out where your audience is most prevalent and which platforms need advertising in order to have your content seen. For example, if your Pinterest account is getting a lot of attention, you may not need to invest in ads on that site, since it’s doing well organically. You can put most of your ad budget on Facebook ads if you’re promoting a new page or on Google Ads if you want to show up in search results.
Metrics are key to determining if what you’re doing is working or not. Get used to checking your stats on a regular basis. That way, if you’re devoting money to something that’s not making much of a difference, you’ll find out sooner rather than later.