skip to Main Content

Marketing is cheap. People are not.

Why now is not the time to cut or reduce your marketing budget, or your marketing activity.

Over the past few weeks I’ve heard several CEOs of SMB companies say things like:

“We’re not spending anything right now.”

“I don’t know if it will work.”

“We’re just trying to make payroll and keep our staff.”

I get it. You want to do the best you can to keep your people. But by NOT investing in ‘marketing’ — you’re dramatically reducing your ability to maintain brand awareness and you’re virtually killing any chances of generating new qualified leads and nurturing those leads towards becoming customers and clients in the weeks and months ahead.

Good intentions aside, by cutting back on marketing activity you’re actually making things worse.

3 months from now with a thinner, smaller pipeline, making payroll will be more difficult.

The thought of investing in marketing at that point will be even harder to do.

And without new revenue or income, you may have to make deeper cuts to your employees and team, just to keep the others on staff.

The downward cycle will continue.

A wise CEO once told me; 

“I’d rather overspend on Marketing than hire 100 new Sales people”.

He’s absolutely right!

A sales person can only contact so many people in a day — drastically limiting their reach.

Your Sales team shouldn’t be educating prospects on what you do or how you can help them — it’s not a good use of their time.

The cost of acquisition – what it costs to bring on one new client from prospect to customer — using a Sales person’s time is exorbitant.

Lastly, this approach is only scalable if you constantly hire hundreds of additional people — and no one can afford to do that.

A Marketing budget is an INVESTMENT. It is NOT A COST.

Unlike Sales, Marketing is absolutely scaleable – reaching hundreds and thousands of your target market for pennies each – all at the same time.

Sales and Business Development people don’t drive traffic or leads to your website. They don’t fill the top of your funnel or pipeline. They don’t nurture prospects through the first two-thirds of their buying journey. It’s not their thing and they shouldn’t do it. But your prospects and future customers do visit websites and they want to learn about your products, services, and why they should do business with you.

Depending on your industry and sector, 70%-85% of buyers conduct their own research and shortlisting of the companies they want to do business with — without you ever being directly involved. If you don’t have a marketing budget how can you meet this need?

You can do a lot of marketing with one-person’s salary.

Every brand should be increasing their marketing budget and efforts so that they raise their brand (product or service) awareness and provide relevant content to help your future customers make informed decisions and enter your sales funnel.

If you don’t, you’re out of sight and out of mind. And if you haven’t made an impression, your buyers won’t remember you and by then… you’ve already lost them to a competitor.

We love marketing and helping B2B and SMB brands grow their marketshare and revenue. And yes, we love how marketing can help you keep your staff as well as employ new staff as your company grows.

Marketing truly is an investment in your company’s future.

Not only does it deliver an ROI, it also doesn’t need to be expensive. At indigoOne we have a different approach to pricing – one that helps you get more out of your budget.

If you view marketing as a cost, we wish you the best. But if you agree marketing is an investment in your long-term future and would like to learn how we can help your company grow — we’re ready and willing to help!

Schedule your 15-minute introductory call and let’s… build your brand with those that matter!

 

Did you know?

  • Most companies spend less than $500,000 on their marketing budget. 2019 research found 12% of SMBs spend between $50,000 – $100,000, with 11% spending between $100,000 – $500,000.
  • According to Gartner; The average 2020 Enterprise marketing budget is 11% of company revenue.
  • Almost half of Enterprise companies (44%) are facing midyear budget cuts in 2020 as a direct result of COVID-19

 

#marketingbudget #marketingspend #SMBmarketingbudget #smallbusinessbudget #howmuchshouldibudget