Your Marketing Budget is Hard to Come by – so Spend it Wisely!

If I had a dollar for every person that said “If Only…”

The sad truth is that at least once a week I see a new client who has called me up in distress. NO – not because their parrot died, but because they all seem to feel the sense of their advertising and marketing dollars going down the drain. Money out and no sales in. Sound familiar?

I am sure at one stage in a person’s career; they have spent money unwisely or made the wrong advertising or marketing decision. I mean, look at some of the global companies you see – here today, gone tomorrow. It’s part of a learning process we must go though to be better business people, right?

Wrong!

With the right advice, you can ensure your marketing dollars are spent with a better chance of getting the results you want.

Here’s a perfect example of a recent & true scenario.

Client X decided to embark on doing their own research and own direct marketing campaign. The results and costs shown below are factual.

Client X: Objective – To obtain new clients and build sales.

Mechanism – Purchase a database and send direct mail.

Action: A new brochure is made and 10,000 printed.

Artwork cost $ 500

Printing cost $ 1800

Postage cost $ 4,500

Envelope cost 00

Label and fulfillment cost $ 1,000

Database cost $ 3500

Total cost $ 11,300

Divide by 10,000 = $ 1.13. Not too bad per mailout really.

Results

Maybe 2% response rate = 200

Maybe 10% of the respondents buy = 20 sales

Each sale if only a one off must make $ 565 to break even.

Using the above calculations, why did the customer call me in distress? What could have went wrong and why did his money go down the drain?

The distress call was because the client rented a database from a company that guaranteed a 95% deliverability or your money back. That’s all and great, and a good way to have confidence in a company supplying rental data. Just as well they got that guarantee as the client received approx 75% of the direct mail envelopes returned to sender. Why? Most of the people had moved or were deceased or for some other reason. The data rental company came good on their guarantee, but what about al the other costs incurred?

That left them with a whopping $ 9025 down the drain. Gone. Kaput. Sayonara. Not to mention the time wasted by the client and their staff.

What could the client have done better? Is there anything the client could have done to avoid what has happened?

Basically, there are some precautions I suggested the client could take.

These would be:

(1) Ask the data broker how long they have been in business?

(2) Ask them are they ADMA qualified and then contact ADMA (Australian Direct Mail Association) to see if they are a listed provider

(3) Ask the broker who their current clients are and contact one of their clients for a referral.

(4) Ask the broker what percentage of their business is repeat business.

These four simple questions, may have avoided the whole issue as there are just as many bad and unethical list brokers out there as there are good ones. Know who they are and look at past work they have done and past clients. That way you can have more confidence.

Alternatively, put the responsibility on a marketing agency or direct mail agency to do this research for you and use reputable suppliers. That will solve all your problems! And probably save you a lot of time and money too!

TIPS

Here are a few tips to help you avoid throwing advertising and marketing dollars away.

Mail Drops

If you are doing a mail drop, don’t just do it once, you will get a much better response and bang for your buck if you do it 2-3 times in the same area. Remember, advertising is about memory recall.

Print

If you are running a print campaign, don’t let your advertising rep try and sell you a one off feature or one off ad. Ensure you have the budget to run a series of ads at least over a min of 3 weeks. Its better to go with a smaller ad more often than a one off larger ad. Advertising is about repetition and building your brand and confidence in potential customers.

Enews

If you are wanting to send an Enews – Don’t send a crappy text, red font, blue font email. It will probably be detrimental to your business more than assistance. Always keep a professional look, invest a few hundred dollars and have the Enews developed by a professional.

Radio

If you are taking radio advertising, don’t get sucked in to buying up front by your radio reps. They may try and sell you “Run of station” which means they are simply filling the gaps where they couldn’t sell. Get a plan together and ask your marketing consultant for advice.

TV is affordable!

We can cut a great ad for under 10k and your 30 sec spots generally are cheaper than radio – you can grab a 30 sec spot from $ 100!

I truly hope my advice has helped you, and I’d love to hear your feedback. You are always welcome to drop me an email with your question or phone me up for advice – we are always here to help!

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How To Invest In The Stock Market During Hard Economic Times

The hard economic slump has disturbed everyone; some more than others. Many people are looking for a way to increase their finances and support their families. Many have turned to the stock market for an extra source of income. However, the stock market has also been greatly affected by the economic downturn. While the stock market is in recovery, it is a wise idea to invest your money cautiously in the stock market whether you are a guru of the stock market or a newbie. In the following article, we will talk about how to invest in the stock market during this difficult economic slump.

To invest in the stock market can be rough regardless of whether the economy is flourishing or failing. One of the best ways to learn where to invest in the stock market during rough economic times is by researching more sources of information. While watching TV and reading the paper or periodicals can sometimes inform us of good stock market trades, you should not base your stock market trades solely on what these media outlets tell you. Many times, the talking heads you see on TV or the materials that you read are just trying to be sensational. Make sure to do your due diligence on every company that you plan to trade. You will want to look at Fundamental and Technical Analysis before you make any stock investments based on what anyone said or what you read in a newspaper. Monthly financial magazines and investment newsletters that have articles and information from professionals is a better source for trading information. Getting information directly from a multitude of professionals is also a smart idea. The more detailed research you have on a company or situation, the better-informed choice you can make on whether to buy or sell.

While risk is always present when trading in the stock market, it is always wise to be more conservative than normal with your portfolio allocation if you have already started to invest in the stock market. Reducing the risks that you can control goes a long way in keeping your portfolio profitable. There is no danger in keeping more of your portfolio liquid in rough times like this. Of course, you may not have the high profits that would desire, but at least there is no chance of losing a great portion of your assets if a downturn in your major stocks happens. Investment tips are nice to have in tough times like these. This is especially true for those who are newcomers to the trading game. Traders who know a lot about the stock market have also turned to their brokers or other experts for advice, too.

Online Marketing – Brains Vs Hard Work

Many people have heard the phrase “Work Smarter, Not Harder”. We like to think that is easy enough to understand, but to learn how to apply this to your daily goals is not so simple. Well, after reading this article you will be prepared to set new priorities in your schedule and start accomplishing more… with less effort.

You might find this hard to believe but a lot of successful online marketers are actually lazy. Yes, I typed successful and lazy in the same sentence! The reason why they are able to do this is from organizing their day so they only spend time on the most important tasks that create profit – the rest is simply not worth their time.

Whether you are just another lazy marketer, or a really hard working one who is really struggling, all you have to do is focus more on the “brains” behind your marketing to achieve the success you’ve always wanted.

The first task is to put together a plan. This needs to be a clear written out plan where you set your specific goals with specific times to achieve those goals. You should read these goals daily. The most important part of putting together a plan is creating a daily schedule for yourself. Your daily schedule is a to do list of tasks to complete each day. For example, on Mondays and Wednesdays you may have added different tasks to do than on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These are the minimum tasks that you will complete for the day so that you know that you are working on your business on a daily basis to keep it moving ahead. Keeping organized is incredibly important in your online marketing, I recommend finding tools to help you do this. One free tool that I recommend for this is called EssentialPIM.

Another way to become incredibly more effective online is to automate repetitive tasks. Constant shifting and sorting is not what you should be spending your time on. You want to keep a personal touch in your business, but there are many things that you find yourself doing on a regular basis that may be time consuming… find those things and try to automate them. One example is using an auto responder. An auto responder helps you keep and build a contact list and also will follow-up with your contacts automatically for you.

Now let’s take a look at your performance. I’ve known many people who have literally spent years attempting to market online and have nothing (or hardly nothing) to show for it. How is this possible? This is the result of consistent ongoing marketing that is ineffective. Some marketing just won’t bring you results… if it isn’t then it is either the source or your marketing technique that are not working. You need to know what is working for you and what is not. No excuses. If you can not tell me measurable results that you expect to receive from each of your individual campaigns then you need to start tracking and getting to know. You know what most people do instead? They think that it is the site or program they are marketing that is the problem, and instead of changing their marketing practices they quit the program they were promoting and jump into the next hot one. This happens over and over again. The truth is that you can make money with absolutely any program if you know how to market. If you don’t know how to market then you won’t make money in any program. Most new marketers just won’t take the time to figure it out, I hope you will. This includes discovering what advertising is not performing for you and to stop doing it! On the other hand it means discovering the advertising that is working for you and to continue doing it on a regular basis or investing even more into that advertising if possible.

In most cases if you want to reach success online you will eventually have to invest money into advertising. Paid advertising or Lifetime Membership with advertising sites are the most effective way to go, but besides investing money you also need to invest your time. Instead of spending your time on the less productive business activities (that have little to show for) you need to spend that time on learning and growing your knowledge. The Internet is completely full of free information such as articles, blogs, reports, an forums. Whatever it is you want to learn it is only a search away on your favorite search engine. In addition, find a mentor you can work with to help you move ahead with guidance and keep you accountable. You must learn something new each week if you plan to really better your online business and growth. Even with my expertise I seek out to learn something new each and every week from people I trust. As it is said… Leaders are Readers. You don’t necessarily have to read, but you do need to keep learning.

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