The final section of my New Year Planning Workbook is all about budgeting. Budgets for marketing are often so small they don’t even make it as a line item on a small business’s budget. Sometimes we don’t budget for any marketing and then “wing it” when your good friend hits you up for a sponsorship at their kid’s baseball tournament.
Sound familiar? A lot of times our marketing money get’s tossed at a few things and business owners see what “sticks.” This year, I challenge you do do something different – spend marketing dollars on purpose and monitor them closely to see if you see an ROI.
In my workbook, I ask some pointed questions on your marketing efforts from the past and encourage you to drop the ones that aren’t working – or at least look at how you can rework them. Here are some examples of additional questions that may help you in this part of your planning for 2019:
- Do you really need to spend large amounts of money on a website redesign or can you use social media to promote your products/services instead – that’s free.
- If you have a great following on Facebook (or other social media platforms), would spending a few dollars on Facebook ads get you in front of the people that could purchase your products?
- Do you have a product or service that you can showcase on a brochure (and social media) that you can leave with current customers so they can refer a friend to your business? (*note – printing brochures is pricey, so consider this one carefully.)
- What is your competition doing that looks to be working really well? Is it feasible to do something similar or even better?
Simple reflection as well as thinking outside the box are going to really help you see an increase in sales this year.
You’ve got this!