Break Out of the Pay, Hope, and Guess Marketing Cycle

Are you responsible for your business’ marketing? If so, I hope that you can appreciate just how incredible today’s marketing opportunities really are.

If you’ve been an entrepreneur or a business manager for a long time, you’ve seen a lot of changes in the way businesses operate and the way that the marketing world works. With today’s technology, there are opportunities now that didn’t exist even five years ago, let alone ten or more.

Social media has changed the marketing playing field, and whether you believe that’s for better or for worse on a societal level, for brands there is no question: social media for brand marketing rocks!  

Not only does social media marketing make it easier and less expensive to reach your target customers, but now you can clearly monitor and course-correct your return on investment. Your ROI is key to your overall marketing and business success.

Where to Start

Marketing now is better than ever before, but it can sometimes be hard to know where to start. You also might wonder what “tricks” and know-how you could be missing.

When you’re invested in the interests of your company but you aren’t necessarily a marketing “expert”, you can get stuck in a process of spending time and money on efforts without really knowing if you’re getting your desired results. This is what I refer to as the “pay, hope, and guess” marketing cycle.

Marketing Then & Now: A Personal Anecdote

I can personally relate to the “pay, hope, and guess” process that most small business owners go through when it comes to marketing. Before Barker Social, I owned and operated two of my own small businesses; I ran a dance studio for 15 years and also had a small health food business. It wasn’t all that long ago that I had to resort to marketing like print ads in the local paper, postering around town, and a variety of other traditional (and costly) marketing methods.

I could never really know how well the ads were working. Pay, hope, guess, and repeat. There were no analytics or real ways to trace my ROI. But now all that has changed.

It’s a case of both “I wish I knew then what I know now,” but even moreso, “I wish I had then what exists now”.

A Case for Social Media Marketing

With today’s social media marketing opportunities, you can spend $500 and achieve results that would have cost $5,000 just a few years ago. One of the companies that I worked with was about to spend $5,000 on traditional marketing in the form of subway advertising. While that might have given them specific visibility within one city, they’re a nation-wide company, and they wouldn’t have been able to determine clear metrics for the results of the ads. Instead, I convinced them to spend just $500 on pay-per-click ads on Facebook and Twitter. The results were fantastic. We were able to see exactly who was clicking, and the exact cost per acquisition.

Back in 1999, I ran monthly ads for my dance business in Now Magazine in Toronto. Those ads costed somewhere in the vicinity of $275/month at that time. Sure, some people would tell me on occasion that they had seen my ad, but I was never really sure just how well it was working. Now, with $275 in Facebook ads I can generate hundreds of specifically trackable click-backs to my website, with a reach in the thousands. The metrics are clearly accessible, so it’s easy now to track, course-correct, and strategize as you go to always ensure that you’re getting the best return on your investment.  

Your Brand is a Lucky Duck

If you run a small, medium, or large business, you can reap incredible rewards and business growth by leveraging the benefits of social media marketing. There is real value to be had, and the return on investment is real. You just need to learn how to take your online marketing by the horns.

I can’t help but wonder what would have happened with my little dance studio if I had known then what I know now—or if the marketing opportunities then had looked like they do now. Who knows, I might still have been cutting a rug rather than analyzing other people’s social networking metrics. But I find the social media analytics to be fascinating, so I don’t mind at all!

If you’re ready to take your own marketing to the next level, we can help. Ask us for a free consultation and we can look at your needs and whether our campaigns or our consulting could be a good fit for your brand.