We’re all becoming too familiar with the state of inflation. With the UK's average weekly shop rising in cost, energy prices skyrocketing without a backward glance, and the general cost of living ballooning. We’re all feeling it - both in business and in everyday life.
So it's totally understandable why some businesses might consider making cuts on their marketing.
Let’s not sugarcoat it - marketing can be expensive, it’s like leaping off a financial ledge. The results aren’t tangible - they're not right in front of you. Taking the leap can be scary. Opening up your wallet to a marketing strategy that ‘might’ work feels like a big risk, especially for start-ups.
Ironically, it’s the very thing that will get you leads, customers, profits, and growth. It just takes strategy and patience.
The post-apocalyptic business
Let's just say you've had a good look at your finances, and you've decided to slash marketing costs. Surely you don't need to be spending money on marketing when you can retreat into the cheaper comfort of DIY marketing? Because surely anyone can whip up an Instagram account out of thin air?
Let's picture a hypothetical world, a world in which you've completely stopped spending money on marketing. Your business has broken up with its marketing plan.
You've pulled the plug on your pricey campaigns, severed ties with outsourced marketing, and you're channeling your money into other investments.
You’re only posting once a week, and you send DIY botch-job emails to your clients once every couple of months just to check they're still subscribed.
Here's what your dystopian business would look like, post-marketing cuts.
Marketing cuts? Goodbye brand awareness
Make marketing cuts, and brand awareness will disappear. Marketing was the very thing that kept your name in the limelight. Cut the support ties and you’re set to crumble when your name is invisible. Your socials are a deserted wasteland; your website contains outdated and confusing information from long ago; and before you know it, it's been a year since your last service customer review.
Over time, your brand becomes coated in a blanket of dust. Your leads consider your business name a distant memory, sort of like a one-hit-wonder.
Your competitors will pop the champagne
While your outreach becomes less visible by the day, your competitors will naturally gain more visibility, by default. Your name becomes a tiny spec on the horizon, while your competitors dominate and grow.
Whether it's due to a lack of online presence, or simply because they can't find you anymore - your potential leads are going elsewhere.
Your competitors will thank you for your generosity. After all, you just single-handedly shifted your clientele to them. Your competitors make the profits you used to make, and they'll gain a wider outreach to your potential customers.
Consumer behaviour? What consumer behaviour?
Staying out of touch with your marketing means you’re distancing yourself from your buyer persona.
How are you going to stay in the loop of your audience's world if you take a step back from their conversations?
Less marketing means less tracking. You won’t recognise their patterns, and it'll be harder to keep up with seasonal changes in behaviour. Tracking these engagement habits is vital knowledge - knowledge that will help shape your future marketing plans and selling tactics. Chop your marketing, and you're going in blind.
Sounds scary, doesn't it?
Making drastic marketing cuts might seem like a good idea in the moment. Particularly when you do the maths. It might save you lots of pennies in the short term, but without quality consistent marketing, things can go downhill quickly.
Let’s flip the narrative. You splash out on a quality marketing plan tailored to your business. You’ve made cuts in other business areas, and you’ve selected a brilliant strategy.
It’s not about going balls to the wall straight away. You don't have to spend your entire marketing budget instantly. It's about developing a well-constructed, exciting plan that will wholly suit your business. It's about research, care, and thought. The best way to avoid financial burnout is to select a strategy that suits you, a strategy that will secure you results.
Good quality marketing investments = excellent quality results
Investing in good quality marketing reaps even better quality results. If you don't perceive marketing as a vital investment, it's probably time to shift the narrative. It might not feel like it, but splashing the cash on marketing is the very thing that will get you growth.
The benefits of inbound marketing investments:
- Content is tailored to your buyer persona (your ideal customer)
- Better quality tracking
- Automation handles the monotonous but important tasks
- High ROI
- Strategy is clean, sharp, and organised
- Engaging content is consistent
Let us introduce you to your knight in shining armour: inbound marketing. We're pretty big advocates of inbound marketing. It's a strategy that recognises each customer on an individual level, combining marketing and sales techniques together to create a powerful strategy that moulds effectively to your buyers.
Speaking of marketing strategy...
Now is probably a good time to let you know about Method’s insightful marketing resources. They’re all homemade with love and care, and you can help you gain a better idea of where you should be putting your money.
Or, if you're keen on getting some help with your marketing - don't be a stranger. Drop us a DM, or email us.
