Market Share Growth

BullshitWalks-F

Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks: Demand Real Marketing Budget ROI

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Your Time-Tested, Full-Service Indiana Advertising Offers Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business

Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks: Demand Real Marketing Budget ROI

No one wants to waste money.

But it happens all the time. Sometimes even the best intentions can lead to spending money on things without regard to value.

Maybe I’m too close to it, but is this something that happens more often in the field of marketing than in others? 

There are a lot of misperceptions, misunderstanding, and straight-up confusion when it comes to how effective marketing spend compared to company sales.

I think this is because a lot of “marketing professionals” are just salespeople selling media space. Billboards, television, radio, and other fluffy, pretty websites, where there is not any real way to gauge how well the buy is doing.

Let’s cut the bullsh*t. There is no way, in today’s data-driven, analytics-heavy, information-rich world that anyone should be spending any marketing dollars without metrics in place to gauge their effectiveness–unless, of course, your customers are NEVER on the Internet. And who’s not these days?

“So don’t buy because you are sold; invest because you believe that marketing is an important component in growing your business.”

Set up metrics for your marketing-budget ROI (return on investment) so your company’s marketing budget is tied directly to agreed-upon metrics for return on investment.

Make sure your marketing partner is responsible for setting up systems to capture and report on the data points required to measure the return-on-marketing spend. Understanding the total budget is an important question too because it sets the stage for the conversation about budget vs. expectations: How does your marketing-budget ROI fit in with the company’s overhead or total cost of goods? From there, build out the metrics for your current cost of customer acquisition. Include the lifetime value of a typical customer and split the cost between marketing and sales.

Think you may be wasting money? Demand marketing professionals will provide real marketing-budget ROI.

Are you looking to build an ROI-based marketing plan? From marketing strategy to marketing program planning, we exist only to help companies grow!

First introduced in 1972, idc-marketing is the most helpful, most prominent, and oldest advertising firm in Lafayette, Indiana. We are a full-service agency that helps companies grow business-to-business (B2B) and consumer-to-business (B2C) market share.

3waysROI

3 Simple Ways to Improve Marketing Budget ROI

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The Most “Fun-To-Hang-With” and Smartest Full-Service Lafayette, Indiana Advertising Firm Offers Tips to Grow Your Business

3 Simple Ways to Improve Marketing Budget ROI

Guest post by Stephanie Bossung, IDC Vice President of Account Services

Today all sorts of advancements in targeted advertising options are available. But you’re still running bus boards with the local bus system. Don’t get me wrong—running bus ads might be a good buy for you, depending on your target audience and your budget.

However, a smarter buy might be a targeted pay-per-click search campaign to put your business in front of the right people at the right time. Either way, start improving your marketing budget ROI by answering these three questions:

1. Who’s Your Target Audience?

You wouldn’t feed your cat dog food, right? Nope, it’s not for them—just as you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t. I’ve seen it many times) advertise products or services to those who are unlikely to buy from your business.

An effective media strategy is framed around your target audience—how are you going to talk to them, reach them?

In a previous life, I was a morning DJ for a local Top 40 radio station, which targets an 18–34-year-old female. (We named this “female” Wendy and hung up a picture, so we knew who we were talking to—an old marketing trick.

One day I was asked to do a commercial for a new client, a funeral home. Let’s think about this. The station caters to all music and content around a young 18–34-year-old woman.

I can tell you, Wendy is NOT interested in funeral homes, nor is she even in a consideration mode. Which brings me to the next question you should ask:

2. How Are You Going to Reach Them?

I know, it can be very overwhelming to consider the many options when it comes to media buying—online display, TV, cable, print and online newspaper, radio, billboards ,and so on. Not to mention, you have every media sales rep in town calling you with deals you don’t want to pass up.

But do they know the overall goal of your business?

Remember my funeral home assignment? I had to ask why is a funeral home advertising on this station. The response? The people who worked there loved the station, they listen every day, and they are excited to hear their commercial on this station. Yes, without consideration to their target audience or at which radio stations they’d find them! This happens more than you think. …

So now that you know your target audience, maybe you have or haven’t picked the right media option because the next question can go hand-in-hand with the previous question.

3. What’s It Going to Take to Reach Them? 

What’s your budget and strategy to reach your audience?

Let’s say you have 4 media options; all of them ARE a fit for your target audience—but you have a limited budget. Some media are more expensive to buy. Therefore, not all of the options in reaching your audience are priced equally.

Media advertising can be expensive; not having enough budget to reach your audience makes for an ineffective campaign. Too much of a budget (yes, there is such a thing) is a waste of dollars that could be spent elsewhere.

What’s the moral of the story? Turn off your paid media spend that isn’t leveraging your target or specifically focused on your audience. Otherwise, you’re throwing your marketing budget right out the window. You should be targeting your marketing campaign to people you want to reach, those who are likely to buy from you. Even if the overall volume is lower, your conversion rate will be higher.

Are you looking for ways to improve marketing budget ROI? From marketing to branding to advertising, we are always interested in helping you grow!

First introduced in 1972, idc-marketing is the most helpful, most prominent, and oldest advertising firm in Lafayette, Indiana. We are a full-service agency that helps companies grow business-to-business (B2B) and consumer-to-business (B2C) market share.

IDC-blog-Bewitched

Bewitched…by that “Darrin Stephens Moment”: Zen of Marketing Strategy

The Wisest, Oldest and Best-Looking Full-Service Lafayette, Indiana Marketing Firm Offers Tips to Grow Your Business

The Zen of Marketing Strategy

The room got quiet.

I was looking at the client who was looking back at me. Jill raised her eyebrows, took a breath, paused, and said, “There it is.” Her two associates laughed, and she joined them. I felt this overpowering urge to check my fly.

“There what is?” I had to ask.

“The Darrin Stephens moment,” she said. “We have been waiting for this, and you did not let us down.”

Wait. Darrin Stephens? Bewitched? I am old enough—I guess enough of a dork— that my first gut reaction was ” Dick York or Dick Sargent?

Darrin was a seminal figure in pop culture back in the day. He was the only ad man on TV…the original Mad Man. He also had a witch as a wife who he loved dearly but absolutely forbade to use her witchcraft.

But she would. She would just wiggle her nose, and the magic happened. Darrin blew his top. Hilarity ensued for about eight years, followed by a decade of reruns during my formative years.

Jill articulated what I have heard several times over the years—people have come to expect that magic a-ha moment from their marketing partner.

I can relate. I get it too. But I get it a little earlier when I’m meeting with my team, and we’re reviewing what they came up with while I was out of their hair.

I can see it a mile away. My magic, ah-ha moment, is not a pretty design or a piece of well-written copy. Mine is when I can see how all the research and homework we’ve internalized for our client…their message…their market…all the details and numbers come together as an integrated, well-positioned program designed to gain market share and boost margins.

At IDC, we know smart business executives look for the science and strategy behind the magic in their marketing partners.

Are you looking for a little zen of marketing strategy to get sales rolling? From marketing strategy to marketing program planning we are always interested in helping you grow!

First introduced in 1972, idc-marketing is the most helpful, most prominent, and oldest advertising firm in Lafayette, Indiana. We are a full-service agency that helps companies grow business-to-business (B2B) and consumer-to-business (B2C) market share.