Small businesses have a notoriously difficult time making sound decisions with their marketing budgets without expert guidance.
If you’ve been feeling like your marketing dollars are being wasted and not delivering on what you had hoped…you’re probably not wrong, and you’re definitely not alone.
A survey of small businesses last year found that at least half had no marketing plan. Other studies have suggested more than 80 percent of small- to mid-size companies have a marketing budget but no written plan to back it up. Los Angeles, marketing and advertising executive Dana C. Arnett says, “It’s like fishing in the ocean and hoping to catch some fish. Throwing a lot of money out there and hoping it sticks is not a strategy”.
Our point: You need a plan. You need to develop a marketing strategy before you spend your money. Let’s talk about some common-sense reasons why.
A Marketing Strategy Helps You Identify Your Target Market
Developing a marketing plan requires research and study to create a profile of your ideal customer. Your marketing agency should know how to develop a customer profile that fits with your business and what you offer. To whom, exactly, will you be marketing? Does your target demographic include young professionals or the working class? Are they from a certain age bracket? Will you be marketing to specific ethnic groups? Do your customers live in specific cities or zip codes? Compiling this data helps you make informed decisions on what marketing tactics and messaging will best reach these people.
A Marketing Strategy Helps You Determine What Works for You
The “newest” marketing fad isn’t always the best for every business, nor does every type of marketing work the same for every business. Marketing is never one-size-fits-all. Taking the time to plan a strategy also involves learning about which types of marketing-speak most to your target market while doing justice to your brand and how your company works. By strategizing beforehand, you’ll avoid wasting marketing dollars on campaigns and platforms that don’t connect the right consumer to your brand.
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A Marketing Strategy Helps You Track Your Results
The one thing that’s more painful than wasting marketing dollars is failing to understand why and how the dollars were wasted. When you make a plan, you also allocate the budget to it—then you track the results. When you see your actual ROI on your marketing budget, you can see what works and what doesn’t, make changes, test and test again—or reallocate marketing dollars away from strategies that failed and toward those that succeeded.
At Wicked Bionic, we make a point of learning everything we can about our clients and their businesses so we can help devise a customized marketing strategy designed to get maximum results. Schedule an appointment and let Wicked Bionic develop an effective marketing strategy for your business.
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About the Author
Dana C. Arnett, Founder and CEO of Wicked Bionic, spent 30 years in the entertainment business before starting the agency in 2015. The Los Angeles-based multicultural communications and advertising agency works with government and private-sector clients on strategic marketing and engaging media campaigns. Dana has always loved learning from other cultures, and that curiosity became the foundation for how Wicked Bionic approaches culturally responsive marketing – building authentic connections between organizations and the communities they serve.
