Ann Dosen
Sarah and I believe that marketing dollars are never wasted. The difference is, sometimes you pay for impact and sales, other times you pay for lessons. I’m giving Sarah the credit for that genius line; it sounds like something she would say.
Marketing is more art than science. Sometimes, a “throw it all at the wall and see what sticks” approach is best. Recently, one of our sponsors asked us if we could test two different ads. Yes! Let’s do it! There are many ways you can test ads, emails, and other content. Experiment with different ideas and concepts to see what is delivering results. Work with your media outlets to see what works.
Marketing is expensive. Invest the time, as well as the dollars, to create fresh content and ad design. Don’t tell your advertising channels to “just use whatever we used last time.” That’s the #1 way to throw money in the trash can. If the last ad performed well and you can verify that with click reports and contact capturing lead pages, then, by all means, run it again! But if you’re just guessing – STOP. Take the time to evaluate the effectiveness and build the proper landing pages and other tools so you don’t have to guess next time.