Back away from the shiny marketing object.
Lately I seem to be getting a flood of questions from business owners who’ve fallen into a “shiny object” marketing trap. That is, they are spending money – sometimes lots of it – on award winning ad campaigns, image and branding programs and other activities that look great but do nothing to directly contribute to more new business.
And they wonder why their marketing isn’t working.
Here’s a perfect example.
The president of Impariamo, an enterprise software company (with the name changed so you don’t recognize him), had invested a significant sum in a brand advertising campaign. He was quite proud of the 4-color ads and the excellent positions his ad agency secured in the trade publications. He thought it did a superior job of communicating his company’s mission & positioning.
But he became frustrated when his sales didn’t go up. What went wrong?
He had failed to ask the right questions. What did he expect to accomplish with the campaign? How would it fit into the sales effort? How many leads did he expect it to generate. Where was the call to action?
Like many companies, Impariamo needed its marketing efforts to drive growth; and that growth was dependent on new inquiries, lead development and enhanced customer relationships. The brand ad campaign couldn’t do this. After a quick marketing audit, we recommended dumping the advertising campaign and reallocating the remaining budget to direct mail, telemarketing and email. This resulted immediately in a 300% increase in inbound leads and eventually to a 100% increase in sales.
Before you allocate any resources to a marketing activity, take the time to understand how it will help increase your business. If you can’t trace an effort directly to this result, you probably shouldn’t spend the money. Who needs an award-winning ad campaign that doesn’t help your sales?
Technorati Tags: marketing, b2b, business to business, lead generation, sales, susan tatum, tatum marketing
This article was first published July 25, 2008 on the Tatum Marketing blog
Lately I seem to be getting a flood of questions from business owners who’ve fallen into a “shiny object” marketing trap. That is, they are spending money – sometimes lots of it – on award winning ad campaigns, image and branding programs and other activities that look great but do nothing to directly contribute to more new business.
And they wonder why their marketing isn’t working.
Here’s a perfect example.
The president of Impariamo, an enterprise software company (with the name changed so you don’t recognize him), had invested a significant sum in a brand advertising campaign. He was quite proud of the 4-color ads and the excellent positions his ad agency secured in the trade publications. He thought it did a superior job of communicating his company’s mission & positioning.
But he became frustrated when his sales didn’t go up. What went wrong?
He had failed to ask the right questions. What did he expect to accomplish with the campaign? How would it fit into the sales effort? How many leads did he expect it to generate. Where was the call to action?
Like many companies, Impariamo needed its marketing efforts to drive growth; and that growth was dependent on new inquiries, lead development and enhanced customer relationships. The brand ad campaign couldn’t do this. After a quick marketing audit, we recommended dumping the advertising campaign and reallocating the remaining budget to direct mail, telemarketing and email. This resulted immediately in a 300% increase in inbound leads and eventually to a 100% increase in sales.
Before you allocate any resources to a marketing activity, take the time to understand how it will help increase your business. If you can’t trace an effort directly to this result, you probably shouldn’t spend the money. Who needs an award-winning ad campaign that doesn’t help your sales?
Thu, Nov 5, 2009
Conversion Rates, Traffic
Written by: Susan Tatum