3 Ways to Waste Your Marketing Budget
I moved a few months ago, so I’m still getting a lot of “Welcome” mail, with small local biz sales pitches for everything from a new car to landscaping. All of which I toss in the recycle bin (if I even bother to open the envelope.) And, not a week goes by that a plastic bag full of cheapo xeroxed marketing stuff isn’t stuck on my door (ditto the bin.)
And every piece I toss represents dollars wasted on marketing. Here’s how:
1. Quantity versus Quality. “We send our free publication to over 100,000 affluent households in your city!” Yes, and the pub is a poorly written rag on low quality paper, stuffed full of ads masquerading as articles. If your target market is the “affluent” folks - they’re not reading this pub to find companies such as yours (Particularly when your ad looks like it’s made by loving hands at home - which brings me to #2).
2. “DIY” Ads. “How hard can it be? I’ve got that Microsoft template. I’ll just cut and paste my logo and save money.” I’m all for “DIY” and in some cases, good enough is really good enough. But, unless you’re a marketing pro, spring for professional help. There are all kinds of strategic and tactical considerations - from what the headline says to printing requirements (Many color logos don’t translate well to black and white, for example.)
3. “One Size Fits All” “Welcome to the Albuquerque metro area! We know you and your family need to….want to…” And so on. A. I’ve lived in the quirky burque for over five years; B. I don’t have a family. Now, of course, the local car dealer can’t easily find that out about me. But, they’ve spent money compiling data on recent home purchases, printed out the letter, stuck it in an envelope and mailed it first class. The only reason I opened this one was for research purposes.
How could they have better spent their marketing dollars? Well, aside from not sending the letter at all - make the mailing a postcard. Envelopes often don’t opened, particularly when it looks like a mass mailing (poor printing, labels); Don’t assume things about the target. A “Congrats” card on my home purchase would have been fine, with the pitch focused on how hectic it is when you first move and how their offer could make life a little easier (free oil change after 5 p.m. or some such.)
P.S. Advertising is often a complete waste of money for small businesses anyway - the budget simply isn’t there for a professional integrated plan and implementation.
P.P.S. Many huge companies are equally as wasteful. For example, I got duplicate letters from Am Ex to “Mary Smith” at “Schmidt and Associates” I’ve been a Am Ex customer for years, and my name isn’t “Smith.” Obviously, they bought a list and didn’t merge and purge.
And so it goes…There are, of course, many other ways to burn through piles of marketing moola including trusting your web site to a graphic designer (nothing against ‘em, but they likely won’t have a business results focus) or “smilin’ and dialin’” cold call telemarketing.
Related Posts: Advertising Does Nothing for Your Brand.
Small is A State of Mind.
Let’s Get Small (Or Size Does Matter.)
Tags: Entrepreneur Sanity Check, Small Business Marketing, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, advertising, direct mail
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September 29th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
I’m not so sure it is a waste. If they spend $1000 on advertising to those 100,000 households, and that in turn draws in $5000 worth of business, then it could easily be seen as successful.
Especially as small business can be so heavily influenced by word of mouth.
To have people spread the good word about you, they have to know you exist in the first place.
The email scourge, SPAM, is a similar method: millions of emails sent to attract a handful of buyers and so it goes. If the advertising costs are so low, it’s a waste of money doing a more targetted marketing campaign.
Thoughts?
September 30th, 2006 at 7:09 am
Steve,
I work with a lot of small businesses and they tell me they haven’t seen business from such things (or from Yellow Page ads either).
Yes, people have to know you exist, but in the right way for the right reasons. Far better to spend that $1K on a special “by invitation” event, personal networking, your web site/blog, or - here’s a real down and dirty technique, putting flyers (with a compelling call to action, message, specifically designed for the target) on car windshields (this is in fact a good way to reach certain targets - say, if you’re selling used vehicles to construction workers.) As a side note, that $1K won’t buy you much - if you’re lucky - even in the cheapo rags - that’s a one time insertion, maybe two. Not enough to get people’s attention. Particularly if you’re ad isn’t well designed (and good ad design could easily cost you much more than $1K).
It’s far better to spend $1K on something that attracts the best customer - versus the shot gun approach (which is what spam is as well.) And, do you really want your name associated with spam? You’ll lose more customers than you ever get (and you’ll never know you lost ‘em.)
A “More targeted” campaign is never a waste - as your dollars are going to the people who are most likely to buy and buy soon. The real key is having multiple integrated tactics, of which advertising is just one potential option.
Lots more thoughts - but we’ll talk about those in other posts.
Thanks for dropping by!
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