A lot of businesses are pulling back on their usual services and holding fire on their growth plans. Many of them are even tightening their purse strings, trying to keep the coppers they have and stay afloat.
But, this can end up being counterproductive, especially when it comes to your marketing budget.
Why Do You Need to Keep Spending?
Okay, so we’re not talking about throwing around thousands of pounds every day (unless you can), but cutting your budgets to the bone could actually hurt your brand in the long run.
Let’s take a look at previous examples of financial crises to get what we’re talking about.
A historic study in the Harvard Business Review looked at how companies were increasing and decreasing their marketing during the Great Depression and its impact on sales.
They found that those who increased their marketing spending also saw an increase in their market share – both during and after the depression – while those who decreased marketing lost out. The same happened between 1980-1985, as shown in the McGraw-Hill Study.
The point is that even during a recession, your brand can still see the advantages of marketing spending. Once that period of worldwide financial difficulty is over (and it will be), you’ll have a head start against competitors who went quiet, and your brand will be ready to take on the world!
But, how do you optimise your marketing budget
Of course, you can’t just throw all of your money at marketing. When the economy isn’t stable, it pays to be a little careful. This is where budget optimisation comes in.
By knowing how to optimise your marketing budget to make the most of your money, you can continue to thrive without putting your business at risk. Here are our top tips to optimise yours.
Use Data to Make Informed Decisions
As a growth marketing agency, we know the value of data (and boy do we talk about it!). But a lot of brands still aren’t aware of how valuable their own analytics can be. In fact, around 73% of business data is still going unused; that’s like sitting on a goldmine and refusing to dig down!
But, your data is crucial if you want to optimise your marketing budget. It can help you:
- Create more engaging content that resonates with your audience
- Help you to target demographics more effectively
- Understand what your audience cares about and use that to create a relatable brand
- Optimise your marketing funnel for greater conversion
Start monitoring your data using tools like Google Analytics. Then, put that data to use by considering it when making marketing decisions. You should be able to create a more cost-effective, targeted strategy that brings your business plenty of new customers and builds connections with your pre-existing audience.
Know Who You’re Trying to Target
We just mentioned targeting demographics briefly, but let’s take a close look at why that’s so important.
Not everyone will want to buy from your brand, so it’s a waste of money to market to the whole world! Focusing your strategy on a specific audience can make it much more effective and less expensive.
For example, when using Facebook Advertising, knowing who to target (in terms of gender, location, age, interests etc.) will increase the success rate of your sponsored posts and create more leads from less money.
Did You Know That You Don’t Have To Do Everything?
You might feel like you should be on every marketing platform out there to see the most success from your strategy, but that’s not the case. If you don’t have the resources, you’ll be stretching yourself way too thin!
Instead, focus on a few well-chosen strategies. For example, you might know that your audience is keen to learn more about your industry, and so you start a blog. Your audience is also on Facebook, which is a great place to promote those blogs.
Start by focusing on building up these channels, and you’re going to see a lot more success than if you waste time and money trying to do it all.
Use A/B Testing to Refine Your Promotions
If you want to learn how to optimise marketing spend, you need to know about A/B testing.
This is a method of audience research to refine your marketing strategy. It works by creating two variants of a similar advert, web page, or anything else you’re using to market your brand. Show both variants to your target audience and see which performs better.
A/B testing is a brilliant way to figure out what works, what resonates with your audience, and what absolutely doesn’t. It can be something as simple as a different shade of red that brings in heaps more leads – seriously!
Are You Connecting With Your Customers?
When it comes to growth marketing, connection is critical. Consumers (especially millennials and Gen Z) see through savvy marketing ploys and want brands they can connect with instead.
90% of people buy from brands they follow on social media, 83% of millennials want to shop with brands with the same values as they do, and 88% will buy from brands who positively impact the world (e.g. those offering sustainable products).
Identify the conversations that are happening, particularly amongst your target audience, and start talking about them too! Create a brand with values and one that offers more than just a product or service. Find things that you can talk about that will resonate with your customers, and your marketing will become a lot more effective. F
Get In Touch With Our Growth Marketing Agency For More Tips
If you want to learn more about how to optimise marketing budget, get in touch with our team at Got Legs Digital today! As growth marketing specialists, we can help you invest your money wisely and get ahead of the game.
