Budgeting for Marketing Activities – 5

Assumptions, B2B, budget, campaign, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, media, single target market

In the last 4 posts we started with nothing but a napkin and created a rough budget that you can spend every month so that you can hit your target of 10 leads.

While most people you talk to will say Maths is tough, here it’s the reverse. Making 5he budget using math is the easy part. But even if you spend $1600/- on Google or Facebook every month (to understandwhere this has come from, read the 4th part of the post on this topic) , you won’t get leads and you may end the year with no orders but $25000/- gone.

The reason for that , whether you’re using LinkedIn or Google or print ads, these are all only media at the end of the day. Someone has to respond to your ads. If no one responds to the ads then you don’t get the leads.

So you have to test for two things here – if the media is right and if the message is right. My assumption is that you have defined your single target market earlier. If not, then that will be the first step.

Not everyone is comfortable, or using the same media. Some people maybe more comfortable with LinkedIn and not okay with Facebook. In some cases the media you are wanting to use, may not have the ability to target the people who are in your Single Target Market.

Next you have to test your ads to see what gets people to click or respond to an advertisement. You have to change them until you start seeing a response. Then you need to make changes keeping the one that’s getting you a response as the benchmark, or what is called as the “control ” in copyrighting circles.

In marketing there’s no such thing as failure, its all about experiments. So you keep testing various hypothesis till you are able to figure out the best combination of media and message for your market.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Budgeting for Marketing Activities – 4

B2B, budget, campaign, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, media

In the last 3 posts we started with a “back of the envelope” calculations for getting a marketing budget. Then we looked at the complexity of the B2B market with not knowing who is the actual decision maker in these customers. We also spoke of having the marketing stamina to last you for a long time because generally B2B buying is not impulsive.

Now let’s look at what options you have for getting in front of the customers from an economics standpoint. In the post yesterday, I touched on a few of these points.

When selecting the media to reach out to the 1000 prospects, whether you want to use Linkedin or Google Ads or plain print pamphlets or events or banner ads, you have to figure out the economics which will generate the traffic to get you your 10 orders.

If you have been in business for a few years, you would have data on the number of leads needed to get an order. Suppose this number is 10, for keeping the simplicity in our calculations, then you are looking to generate a minimum of 100 leads.

Since we have assumed a lead time of 3 months for an order, we raise this target to 125 leads through the year or 100 leads in 9 months. Therefore if your budget is $25000/- for the year, you can happily spend $200 (25000/125) to get a lead and you have to spend this over a one year period. Which means on a per month basis you can spend about $16/- per lead or overall $1600/- per month on whatever mix of media you want to use.

Now every advertisement you create or every event you do will not be a success. So you have to also account for that process.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Budgeting for Marketing Activities – 3

B2B, budget, campaign, Marketing, Marketing Stamina

In the last 2 posts I have written about how you can estimate a rough budget and then what you need to figure out in the B2B market. In yesterday’s post I again emphasized on the concept of Marketing Stamina.

Today we will look at how you work out the economics of your marketing.

So we know we have $25000 with us, we also know that the lead time to convert an enquiry into an order could be about 3 months (longer if it’s a high value purchase). What we don’t know is that who among your prospects is going to raise their hand to ask you for your product or service.

If we start with a pack of say 1000 company names then you the inevitability principle 500 of them will change their vendor in the next 3-5 years. You only don’t know which 500 of them will and when in the next 5 years. They obviously won’t all happen in the last quarter of the 5th year also.

So we have to figure out a way to be in front of these 1000 prospects continuously. The media you choose can vary – print, PPC, LinkedIn etc. Depending on the demographic profile and the cost of reaching that profile on a regular basis.

What you have to keep in mind that your budget has to last you through the year such that you can get at the least 10 customers.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Budgeting for Marketing Activities – 2

B2B, budget, Marketing, Marketing Stamina

In yesterday’s post I showcased a quick and dirty method to identify your budget for doing marketing activities. Once you have identified with your rough calculation the amount of marketing budget you need to ask for and the outcome you have to deliver, you now need to figure out how you will go about your campaigns

In B2B the lead time to get an order is quite large – large is a relative term – depending on the size of the deals that you are looking for. The second characteristic of the B2B market is that generally there is no impulse buying especially in the mid to large companies. The third characteristic is that there are multiple buyers involved in most B2B deals, so the inertia is larger and the decision cycle is complex.

What this means is that you have to have the marketing stamina to ensure that you are able to consistently get in front of the customer with your content so that when the need arises at the customer end, you are in front of them and they call you first.

The advantage with B2B customers is that they are what Dean Jackson would call as semi visible. Meaning you can get a list of companies for most combinations. However within the company its difficult to identify who are the people involved with what you sell and the dynamics within them. Where are the power centers that you need to be aware of.

Since it is easy to identify them, B2B customers are inundated with a whole lot of marketing material. the other challenge is that even if you know say the decision maker is a CFO, chances are that the research on a new vendor or product will be done by a junior who will be assigned the job. So you either run parallel campaigns for different levels, or you run the campaigns in such a way that the people can easily remember you and handover details to the person who is researching.

Due to this I used the term, Marketing Stamina. It takes time to build a momentum before which you can get some real enquiries.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!