As marketers, we’re always striving to get the most from our budget without compromising the brand or the customer’s experience — not an easy feat.
It benefits us to remember how much money can be saved by making subtle changes to marketing strategy and program execution. Here are ten ideas across all segments of your marketing budget that will help you do just that.
1. Enter New Markets Through The Affiliate Channel
Instead of incurring the overhead costs of opening new offices and hiring additional staff, look to the affiliate channel to help you enter new markets.
Along with providing you with local experts, the pay-for-performance model ensures a low-risk, low-overhead proposition that enables you to test the waters before fully investing in new territories.
2. Analyze Campaign Performance Individually & Across All Your Marketing Channels
It’s worth it to take a closer look at the results of each marketing channel and then at the ways that all of your channels complement each other to assist and drive conversions.
For example, it may initially appear that search and affiliate were the two strongest channels for your recent Valentine’s Day campaign. This limited insight may prompt you to pull back on another channel. However, if you look at the big picture, you may discover that display was critical to assisting in those Valentine’s Day conversions. You may also learn that combining those channels is more effective than operating them in silos.
So before you launch your next campaign, dig into your attribution models to better understand how all of your channels work separately and together. This type of insight can have a big impact on your bottom line.
3. Scale Back On Your Press Release Distribution Circuits
When your PR team queues up a press release to go over the wire, they’re presented with a lot of options for distribution. These include local, national and international circuits. Each circuit has a fee associated with it.
With the most recent changes to the way search engines rank press releases (lower) and journalists’ interest in covering news before it hits the wire, you may want to scale back the distribution circuits you use for certain announcements.
For example, you may not need national distribution for every press release. Instead, a local circuit may be sufficient for ensuring your press release shows up in search engine results while saving you from having to incur unnecessary wire charges.
4. Trim Translation Fees
When it comes to translating your copy, you don’t want to skimp on quality and risk the context of your message being misconstrued. However, you can still save money on translation fees without risking your reputation.
Since you’re likely paying translation fees on a per-word basis, you can save by using fewer words and eliminating any industry jargon in your copy. Along with enabling audiences all over the world to better understand your value proposition, cutting jargon also ensures your messages don’t get lost in translation.
5. Be Flexible With The Date & Location Of Your Events
If you’re planning an event at a hotel, before you lock in a date, ask if they have any “need dates.” These are the open dates they’re looking to fill. If you have flexibility, this is great way to get a good deal on the venue.
6. Save On Search
When it comes to your search marketing campaigns, don’t sacrifice position just to save a few dollars. Key to keep in mind is that you can save money by putting in less aggressive keyword bids during the lower converting times and days of the week and in the lower-converting categories.
7. Pay For Engagement, Not Clicks
When it comes to demonstrating the ROI of a display ad and determining proper attribution for campaign performance, engagement is more insightful than clicks. This is because engagement is a more realistic indicator of a customer’s interest. Therefore, your display and retargeting campaign results should be based on whether a customer actually interacted with an ad and if that engagement led to a sale. While clicks are still an important part of measuring performance, you can save money on display campaigns by only paying for engagement.
8. Outsource What You Can’t Or Prefer Not To Do
On paper, it may look like you can save a few dollars by bringing certain functions in house or combining related job functions. Yet, the reality is if you don’t have the expertise on staff or spread them too thin, you can end up spending more due to the lack of in-depth knowledge or staff burnout.
9. Automate Your Product Feeds
When potential customers are shopping online, any inaccurate or incomplete information will result in lost sales. Yet, the process of updating and optimizing product feeds can be time consuming, therefore cutting into your staff resources.
To ensure your online product information is always current, consider using technology that automatically and intelligently updates your feeds including listings on comparison-shopping sites, coupon, portals, blogs and loyalty programs.
10. Renegotiate Subscription Fees
This includes software, newspapers and industry association memberships. While you don’t want to limit access or opportunities to grow your team and cultivate new business, you may want to take a closer look at how much is being spent on subscriptions. Based on what you discover, consider renegotiating more appealing terms for group rates and user licenses.
Conclusion
All of these behind-the-scenes actions can save you money without putting your campaign results at risk. And while some activities will save more than others, combined they can add up to significant cost savings.
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