How Much Money Should Your Marketing Cost?

What would you do if you had spent 6 figures on your marketing without good results? We recently spoke to a business owner who had done just that. The owner had committed to spending money on marketing and once the commitment was made it became a money pit. One of the fallacies we use to convince ourselves is the fallacy of sunk cost.

If you’ve ever thought “I’ve spent this much already. Changing course now would be wasting that money,” then you’ve embraced this fallacy yourself. It’s understandable to not want to have what you have invested be wasted. But letting that control your decision process is not wise. The problem which that owner finally realized, and which we talk about all the time is the need to have a strategy that accounts for not only how you will spend your money, but also how that investment will help you acquire leads.

Two Approaches

Before you can begin to understand or create a strategy, you should be aware of the two approaches to marketing. These approaches aren’t about technique or strategy. They are about the resources you will use. And realistically, you will find yourself using each approach at different times. And when you know them and how to use them efficiently, you will be able to make the best decision for how and when to utilize them appropriately.

The first approach is time leveraged marketing. This means that you invest your time into creating content, posting it, and building relationships yourself in order to spread your reach. This is the approach that small business owners who are just getting started and don’t have much income have to use. The downside is that it takes up your time and effort to get it done and it won’t scale with your business.

The second approach is to leverage money to do marketing. Between hiring someone else to do the creation of content, the use of paid advertising, and investments in the infrastructure you need to handle the incoming leads, you will be investing money in order to get leads.

How a Strategy Helps

A marketing strategy not only tells you what you need to do but also helps you understand how to do it. A thorough strategy will give you the breakdown of which things need to be done and when, and will help you decide which of the approaches will be a better fit for each part. It also helps you know when to stop doing something that isn’t working.
At BluBambu, we regularly help our clients create marketing strategies that account for the channels (Website, Social Media, Advertising, etc.). Each strategy is customized to fit the needs and approaches you need to make the strategy work for you and keep you on budget.

The Purpose of Marketing

Everything in your strategy and your execution of it comes back to one thing. Marketing exists to help you make money. It’s an investment. Or at least it should be. Spending 6 figures on marketing that doesn’t give any return is a waste of that investment. (And we know we are understating that by quite a bit.) Even if your marketing investment is less than ten thousand, you should be seeing returns from that marketing. That is what we desire for you. It’s why we offer marketing strategies as one of the main services we offer. If you don’t know your marketing strategy, or if you don’t have one, call us. Don’t continue to waste your hard earned money on marketing that won’t even pay for itself.

Not sure where to start?

We’ve created this free download to help you find the starting line. And give us a call after you’ve downloaded this, so we can help you customize your strategy to fit your business.