Dear Client,
What’s that? You say you want to increase your annual revenue by 2x or 3x in the next 3-5 years? That’s AWESOME! We applaud your ambition and your confidence, and we really want to be part of this exciting road of wins!
What’s that now? You only want to spend $50,000 on your annual, integrated marketing budget which includes branding, website optimization, social media, search engine optimization, paid digital advertising, media placements, updated photography and ongoing video content creation? Way to take the wind out of our sails (and yours by the way).
We’ve had so many prospect meetings in the last couple of months that sounded just like this. I’m encouraged by these business owners who are tired of waiting for leads and new business to just appear before them and want to take charge of the situation. And while they want to get on with the business of aggressively growing their companies (post-pandemic), most are not realistic about what’s required to reach such lofty goals.
If you want to increase your sales exponentially, you need to spend accordingly. It’s that simple.
Hiring a full-service Agency who specializes in integrated marketing strategies and who has thoughtfully built a kick-ass team of talented people (yup, that’s us), is the fastest way to reach your sales goals.
The integrated marketing plans that we create for prospects, where we spend hours of time talking with you through discovery, researching your competitive market, and carefully crafting a strategy with a realistic budget to help you reach specific goals… well, often are met with blank stares, push-back on the budget, or worse… crickets. The trending response is that you only want to spend 1/3 of that budget but that you expect the same results.
With a third of the budget, will you see some gains? Probably. Will you reach your ultimate revenue goals in the time you proudly declared at the beginning? Definitely not. Clients who pick and choose their tactics because they don’t want to go all in wonder why they aren’t seeing the results they wanted, and we get blamed (or marketing does in general).
We get it, if you’ve never budgeted for marketing before, it’s a big commitment. If you’re squeamish about really investing in your marketing, here’s my advice: If you have ambitious revenue growth goals for the next few years, start by looking at your existing budget and establish a line item for marketing. Depending on just how ambitious those goals are, you should aim for 10% to 25% of your annual PROJECTED revenue. When you treat your marketing spend as an investment with an expected return, you will see the results you’re looking for. Start there, then come talk to us.
With respect & gratitude,
Darci
This is part of an ongoing blog series, Dear Client, that will provide insights and advice on how to get the greatest results from your Agency partnership, written by Darci Knowles.
