Cleaning Up Your Marketing Clutter: Streamline Your Self

Cleaning Up Your Marketing Clutter: Streamline Your Self
Chris Lonergan
Chris Lonergan February 6, 2018

A lot of marketing has to do with maximizing your exposure. But, if your business doesn't have the appropriate team or proper skill set, you could be spreading yourself too thin. Sometimes, cleaning up your marketing clutter and streamlining your most effective marketing channels can be more worthwhile.

Take a Step Back and Review

Evaluate where you currently stand with your marketing presence. Let's assume that your website presence is a standard – there isn't a marketing company out there today that will tell you to abandon your website so that you can have more marketing spend elsewhere.

Social Media Activities

  • Do you post on Facebook every day? Couple times a week?
  • Do you tweet?
  • Are you active on Houzz?
  • How much time are you spending on developing content to share on social media exclusively?

Paid Online Marketing

  • Google Ads
  • Display Ads
  • Retargetting
  • Call-Only PPC
  • Facebook / Instagram Ads
  • PayPerLead services like HomeAdvisor
  • Advertising services on private sites like Angie's List

Client Interaction Outside of Your Website

  • Physical Newsletters
  • Direct Mail Postcards
  • Thank You Cards
  • Every Door Direct Mailers
  • Doorhangers
  • Flyers
  • Electronic Newsletters

Other Paid Services That Support Your Marketing Efforts

  • Listing Management Services
  • Review Management Services
  • Online Form Services
  • Call Tracking Services
  • Ecommerce / online payment systems

Events and Miscellaneous Marketing

  • Organization Dues
  • Consultant Fees
  • Local Customer Events
  • Team or Event Sponsorships
  • =
  • Home Shows
  • Industry Expos
  • Charitable Work
  • Donations
  • Customer Appreciation Efforts

Where Do You Get The Most Bang For Your Buck?

Lead Generation Marketing

Before we get too deep into ROI, it's important to remember that marketing does not necessarily mean lead generation. Marketing overall refers to how your business portrays itself, which is usually built up with the cumulative effort of all of your channels over time.

As an example – a single thank you card will not immediately earn you more business. But by the same token, it is not a bad idea to send thank you cards for the sake of top-of-mind awareness and customer service.

If you are looking for lead generation exclusively, your advertising plan looks very different. Have a website, do PPC, and use EDDM – That's basically it. Lead generation is a money-in-leads-out, and it usually requires a good amount of capital to get started.

Quantifying Your Marketing Efforts Can Be Difficult

Some aspects of your marketing you may not able to truly gauge because the customers themselves may likely not point to a single factor for using your services. It's not common for you customer will say "I used your services because of this single Houzz post" (although we have seen it happen!).

Chances are that your customers have been influenced by the totality of your marketing effort – so if you are looking at curbing your marketing efforts, keep that in mind. Marketing is not as clearly cause-and-effect as lead generation can be.

For example, you may not immediately feel any change in your incoming leads if you pull your email marketing, but you may over time notice a drop in referrals or return clients. If you do plan on playing with your marketing plan – keep that in mind.

A well rounded marketing plan doesn't have to be all consuming, but it does take some planning. Part of that planning means identifying what is and isn't working.

Identifying What Isn't Working

Some of this can be just common sense. If you're active on social media, with low follower counts and absolutely no budget in place to grow your audience, it may not worth your time to create custom content for your social accounts. If you're spending buckets on money on PPC and getting no results, it may be time to re-evaluate your game plan.

Identifying your cost per lead can be a great way to determine what is working and what isn't working. To determine the approximate cost per lead, simply take the number of leads and divide that into the cost of that particular marketing tool.

For example, say our website and local optimization services cost you approximately $200 per month. During the average month, you get 10 phone calls and 10 form submissions. $200 divided by the 20 leads = $10 is your cost per lead.

What your cost per lead is and should be depends on your business and your location – If you are in a more competitive market, your cost per lead may be higher. An HVAC Installation lead will likely cost more than a handyman lead. It's all relative to you and your business.

Resolving Your Marketing Problems

When you identify your problematic marketing areas, you can either improve your plan or reduce your presence. Social media can be very important and can work when done well. However, if you're doing it yourself and cannot get any traction, then simply claim your pages to ensure your contact information is up-to-date and don't worry about posting. Or, if you have the resources, you can utilize a marketing company to manage our social media accounts and grow your presence.

If you're running your PPC campaigns yourself, it may be time to invest in some PPC Management services. That could actually save you money in the end by reducing your actual cost per lead compared.

Amplifying What Is Working Well

When you determine your marketing strengths, you can further invest to grow your business. If you are #4 in the Google local maps and thus just outside of the top 3 – you could spend some more time getting Google reviews to vastly improve your exposure.

If you are currently adding recent projects or "Individual Project Posts" once a month and your website is doing okay, consider adding that type of contact more regularly. If your PPC campaigns are efficient and you have a great cost per lead, increasing your spending means increasing your lead numbers at scale.

Having a smaller marketing footprint also means it is easier to have a cohesive marketing message. Your unique combination of website / PPC / social media / print marketing can have a central marketing message that is easier to push out for a few channels compared to when you cast a very wide net.

Keep Your Marketing Plan Clutter Free

Now that you've got a concise, focused marketing plan – you can maximize your business with minimized waste. Just remember when moving forward and looking at new marketing avenues and opportunities, take a moment think if this new avenue is worth a test and an expansion of your resources.

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