Remember the saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”?
Sound advice, right?
It was then, and when it comes to marketing budget management in today’s digital world, it still is!
Unfortunately, there is so much more going on today than there ever has been. Can you imagine running a business back before the internet where you had maybe three or four places where you could invest your marketing budget?
You could run an ad in the local paper (after all, who was going to buy your product from the next town over, let alone the other side of the world?).
If you have the addresses you could run a mail shot, or an ad on the local radio. Maybe you could rent a couple of billboards. And you’d have a listing in the Yellow Pages.
After that, however, your options were pretty much exhausted.
In today’s world there are a multitude of marketing avenues open to every business – above the line, below the line and online – and the savvy marketer knows that you need to spread your marketing budget across several channels to get the best bang for your buck.
For most businesses one thing is for sure – at the heart of everything you do is your website.
The way your market responds to your advertising may vary, but in the main any response to your efforts will be in the form of a visit to your website… at least in the first instance.
Someone looking for your product or services will likely turn to Google. Another might hear about you on the radio and check you out online before picking up the phone. Someone might check reviews and click through to your site based on the favourable feedback from other customers. Or maybe you sent them an email with links to your site. Maybe someone else did. It doesn’t matter… your website is the hub from and to which all other efforts move.
So you need to invest in your website, right?
Well, yes… but not at the expense of everything else.
It’s no mistake that we talk about traffic online. It’s a great way to understand the movement of people around the web.
But it’s not aimless movement for the sake of movement (unless we’re talking YouTube which is a rabbit hole!).
At least when we are talking about people in the market for your product or service, there is a direction to their travel. They are trying to get to where they want to be. And you may well be the perfect destination. But they don’t know that.
Whilst your website may be exactly what they are looking for – they are not going to find it without following directions.
So building your website to be the best it can be is important, but a little like the Field of Dreams, just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come.
Advertising principles haven’t changed and building a website without advertising is still like winking at a girl in the dark (Stuart H Britt).
If you spend all your budget on your website, no-one will know but you… and by then, it’s too late.
Ask us about marketing budget management and how to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket!
