When budgets are tight, finding the right type of marketing to reach your audience can be stressful. It’s no longer as easy as buying ads in local media. Digital marketing is key, but it’s also daunting, and options can be overwhelming. AZ Media Maven can help you navigate how to best direct your dollars. We’ve compiled these tips to help you find the right return on investment by choosing the platform(s) best suited to your small business’s audience and budget.
Research Your Audience
How do you know where to spend your valuable marketing budget? First, research your audience and the market as it pertains to your business. Determine how much money comparable businesses spend on marketing and advertising. For example, if you have a Facebook page, Facebook allows you to follow up to five pages run by your competitors. You can compare the success of your page against your main rivals and see what strategies they are using and what type of posts are getting most engagement, and then implement your own version of those strategies.
Research where your competitors are spending their advertising money and the purpose of each element of common marketing plans. This will help you refine your marketing approach to the steps that really matter.
Understand Your Sales Funnel
It’s important to understand how customers find your business and make the decision to purchase your products or hire you for services. Look at metrics such as the number of website visitors you have per month, the number of leads you generate per month, the amount of revenue generated per new deal, and the number of leads converted into opportunities. This will help guide your marketing approach to fit your revenue cycle as well as the customer experience you offer.
This data can be derived from Google Analytics, which tracks website visitors by geography, time on the site, where they visited on the site, and how long they stayed. It also shows you where the visitor found you: from searching for a keyword, direct search for your business name, or from a social media platform such as Yelp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or elsewhere.
Data from your various social media platforms also includes information regarding potential customers such as geography, age, and more. Use this data to understand who is seeking your company, and then target them with your advertising.
Determine Operational Costs for Marketing
Deciding what to spend on marketing relates directly to the value of the leads you are currently getting and the time and effort it takes to convert them into paying customers or clients. If you are getting tons of referrals, then maybe your budget doesn’t need to be huge to continue pulling in quality leads.
When setting your budget, consider factors such as time and labor costs for developing a marketing campaign, the feasibility of hiring a marketing person or team versus doing the work in-house, and the cost of your inaction. Are you losing business and potential customers because you’re not actively marketing your company?
Set Business Goals and Develop a Plan
Once you’ve nailed down your business goals and objectives, build a marketing plan to optimize marketing reach and relevancy. Keep the information we’ve discussed in mind as you look at potential budgets and make the choice that meets your needs without burning through money that might be better spent elsewhere. For more information about marketing tailored to fit your brand, reach out to our team today. AZ Media Maven is experienced in media buying, digital advertising on Facebook, Yelp, Google Ads, and industry-specific platforms. Let our research help guide you to making the best decision for your business.
AZ Media Maven is based in Laveen, AZ, a suburban village in the greater Phoenix area. Owner Rose Tring has more than 30 years of journalism experience as an editor and writer, many of those years in business news. AZ Media Maven was created in 2012 to serve other business owners in learning how to best use social media and to provide affordable public relations services. Reach AZ Media Maven by emailing azmediamaven@azmediamaven.com, or calling (602) 373-8371.
