We can still hear our mother’s voice ringing in our ears, all these years later…

Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know!

And like always, she was right.

Chances are, your business’ marketing budget doesn’t grow on a tree either—and you take every opportunity you can to maximize it. But if you’re making one of these three common marketing budget mistakes, you may be outspending your ROI without knowing it!

Before you finalize your 2023 plan, check out these three ways businesses overspend on marketing:

     1. They stretch their budget too thin

We get it—you have a ton of great marketing ideas, and you want to try them all! Between social media, website SEO, content marketing, email campaigns, print campaigns, podcast ads, and the thousands of other ways to get your brand out there, it can feel impossible to narrow down your strategies.

But when you try to leverage every strategy in the book, you’re unable to make the most of any of them. Especially if you’ve got a small marketing team. And before you know it, you’ve wiped out your whole marketing budget with no clear results to show for it.

If you really want to maximize every dollar, focus on the small handful of strategies that specifically target your ideal customers (more on that below!). It may take some research to determine exactly which strategies do that, but once you find them, stay focused on just a few main approaches.

     2. The second mistake businesses make is being inconsistent with their marketing strategies

Here’s how this plays out: You pick your main strategy (good start!) and go all in on it. You generate some momentum, and the leads start flowing. Now you’re getting busy! To save a little money, you turn off that strategy for a bit—after all, it worked. But before you know it, the leads have dried up, and revenue drops. So you turn the strategy back on and WOW! New leads! But then, you turn it off again…

Sound familiar?

Marketing is like a thermostat—it works best when you set it and let it do its job. Because when you’re inconsistent, you end up spending more than is necessary to “turn on” your lead flow.

When you find a marketing strategy that works, let it run in the background. In time, you can layer in additional tactics, but keep your focus on steady marketing for steady results.

     3. The third mistake we often see is businesses targeting the wrong audience (or no audience at all!)

There’s no marketing strategy more expensive than putting your amazing ads, content, and branding in front of a totally disinterested audience!

To really maximize the impact of every dollar, make sure you’ve done a thorough analysis of who buys your product or service, and why. Look through feedback and customer data to discover who they are, where they come from, how they hear about you, and why they’re loyal to your brand. If you don’t already have a customer survey in place, run one. And if you’re not sure how to do this in-depth research, hire an agency to help (like MediaSpark!).

We guarantee, there’s no better marketing ROI than sharing your high-quality offers with an audience who can’t wait to buy.

At MediaSpark, we help businesses make the most of their marketing budget

We believe in ROI and real results—and we can’t wait to help you achieve both. When you’re ready to level up your strategy, Let’s Chat!