Friday, May 15, 2009

Optimizing Your Small Business Marketing Campaigns


As a copy writer for web/print, I know that the most effective campaigns are guided by thoroughly planned out marketing strategies. I've written the following brief article to help you grow your revenue faster with less risk.

Optimal marketing campaigns—those that result in the highest net profit return on your investment of time and money—are the result of sufficient research, strategy, planning, and careful decision making, weighing all the factors. As a seasoned marketing strategist with experience in a wide variety of industries, I can help guide you every step of the way, preventing you from wasting your precious time and money. Then, when it comes time to design the format and write your copy for web sites, sales letters, post cards, flyers, and promotional audio or video, I can either write it for you or write it with you, teaching you how to do it yourself in the future.

Without the necessary research, strategy, and planning, the likelihood that you’ll have a strong ROI, or even have ANY profit from a marketing campaign, is much lower. If you take the time to develop a strategy that answers the following questions, you’re like to find much more success in all of your campaigns:

Which strategy is most likely to produce the greatest net profit in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of risk?

So, let’s break that down. Which strategy (or optional promotional opportunity) is 1) most likely (probability expressed as a percentage, e.g. 50% probability of success) to produce the greatest 2) net profit (a $100 net profit versus a $1000 net profit) in the shortest amount of 3) time (recorded in days, weeks, months, or years) with the least amount of 4) risk (the subjective emotional as well as financial component of the company’s decision makers).

Risk assessment is probably one of the most challenging of the 4 factors. If you had $1 million in your company’s accounts, you probably wouldn’t mind investing $50,000 in a marketing campaign. But, if you only had a total of $50,000 in your company's "war chest," you would be far less comfortable investing your entire amount of capital. So, for our purposes, we will express this risk factor as a percentage of total capital available.

This single question, involving several variables, will guide all of your marketing and sales process decision-making. It can be graphically illustrated in the following table, where the Options are the various marketing channels or promotional opportunities available to most small businesses. Then, you give a numeric value to each of the factors according to how important it is to YOU relative to each other.

Options Probability Net Profit Time Frame Level of Risk/

% of total budget

Option A 90% $100 1 week 5%
Option B 40% $2,000 3 weeks 30%
Option C 20% $50,000 8 weeks 60%

Based on this matrix of marketing campaign decision making, which type of decision is easier, faster to make, and one that you’d be willing to go ahead with time and time again. Let’s look at Option A: Is it a “no-brainer” to make a decision that is 90% likely to work, only involves a 1 week time span, and requires only 5% of your overall marketing budget at risk? So, even though the net profit of $100 is not a lot, you could make this “bet” several times a week, couldn’t you? And you’d still be able to feel very comfortable with the level of risk, wouldn’t you?

Whereas, Option C, with it’s high net profit potential, is less of an attractive option, since it is only 20% likely to work and requires both a longer wait time of 8 weeks and a much larger risk factor, taking 60% of your marketing budget to execute.

Now, are you starting to see how analyzing every marketing opportunity available to you is a crucial step to making sure you don’t waste time and money? In fact, this one formula for comparing marketing channels can guide your every decision, making sure you are comfortable with the risk, and can improve your chances of a successful campaign many times over.

For testimonials from clients, enjoy reviewing my LinkedIn professional profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewbarden

Sample copy writing sites:

www.eggurl.com/dV

www.AndrewBarden.com

www.SoccerMarketingInc.com

www.TrainingInLA.org

www.MackeySalesTeam.com

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