I was at a Chamber of Commerce networking event a few days ago and one of my fellow delegates commented on how he had switched his marketing budget from advertising to another form of promotion.
I quizzed him on this and it became apparent that he didn’t really have any idea how successful the advertising had been, but that he felt he should move his marketing spend to a different area.
At my company, Alchemy 7, we are very scientific about how we look at marketing spend. The bottom line is that you can put systems in place to be able to measure the effectiveness of different campaigns. If you know that by investing £1,000 for example on a particular campaign you generate £2,000 in profit then the marketing budget becomes an investment rather than a cost. Would you switch this expenditure to something else or would you build on this success with increased investment?
The bottom line is that most companies do not measure the effectiveness of their marketing and that is why they view marketing as a cost rather than as an investment. The good news for savvy marketers is that there are plenty of opportunities to take a more scientific approach to their campaigns and stay ahead of the game.
