The Video Wizard

I spoke to someone today who told me they had their advertising and marketing budget planned out for the next 12 months.

I haven’t heard someone say this in quite some time – with marketing today you need to keep up to date and be flexible for movement because things are moving so fast. I’m always reviewing what’s working and constantly improving marketing for myself and also for clients. It is a real concern that there are people out there that think they have it all under control with plans that stretch so far into the future.

Let’s consider what has happened in the last financial year for a moment. With all the latest developments and growth with video and social media taking over the web, it would be virtually impossible to have created an effective marketing plan 12 months ago that was still relevant today.

The exponential growth of online marketing technology is a challenge for every business owner and certainly one worth you investing constant time and energy towards understanding.

If you are not aware or up to date with the latest trends, and if you are relying on traditional media for your marketing, I can only urge you to take a step back and look at the big picture.

When you plan out a media strategy that spans over 12 months (a certain directory comes to mind here) you are immediately disadvantaged from others taking a more relevant approach. I’ll explain this in more detail now so you can understand how this works.

A guy named Frank has just committed to advertising in a well known publication for twelve months, this is costing Frank $1300 per month which was within Frank’s budget and it gives him great exposure. In total, Frank has actually signed up for over $15,000 worth of advertising. A few points to note here:

• Once he delivers the artwork or signs off on the ad design, he is locked in to this for twelve months
• At no point throughout the twelve months can he ‘update’ his or have any control over it
• It would be very easy for Frank to have absolutely no way of measuring how effective this is for his business

Fortunately, Frank had a special offer with a coupon that people could send in for a special offer and he also had a 1300 number setup to link to this ad. After the first month, he reviews the performance of the ad.

The results…

Frank discovers that his $1300 generated 7 enquiries and this resulted in two sales totalling $680. In the first month he lost $620 from this advertising. The worst thing is, he now has no control over this investment and has to feel the pinch of this every month for the next 11 months. Every month he can now count on paying out $1300 for advertising, desperately hoping that he can get enough sales to cover this expense. He is locked in to a contract that burns $600 of his money every month. Even worse, when the 12 months is up he is left with nothing to show for it. Ouch!

Imagine what Frank could do with this money if he had the flexibility to change things on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis?

Frank could have used this money for online marketing which has a number of benefits that outperform traditional media. A few that come to mind include:

• He would have been making an investment for his business – these assets would still be working 12 months later
• He could have changed things in the marketing to test better headlines, better offers etc
• He could have measured and tracked the performance of every marketing campaign he tried that year
• He would have been in full control of his budget and monthly marketing initiatives

Summary

Frank put himself in an unfortunate position by using traditional media and tying his money up with advertising that he had no control over. The new financial year is just around the corner and I wrote this as a warning for business owners reviewing their marketing at this time. The sad thing is that most people don’t measure their marketing results and are oblivious to the situation they are in.

Do you measure your results? Do you know what you’re doing for the next twelve months with your marketing budget?

Any ‘set and forget’ marketing opportunities that come up are dangerous in my eyes. You need to be on top of what is happening and give yourself time to re-invent your marketing on a regular basis. The game is changing, so keep a watchful eye on what is working in your marketing and what demands your attention moving forward.

My words of advice is to review things as often as possible. Quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily. Whatever works for you, just don’t make the mistake of committing to long term advertising contracts without measuring their performance or knowing you’re getting good value for money. More importantly, don’t block yourself off to new opportunities that come up simply because it’s easier to say you have it under control.