According to U.S Small Business Administration, small business owners should be spending %7-8 percent of their gross revenue on advertising and marketing . Most business owners are still using traditional forms of advertising to reach their audience and have never stopped to ask themselves “Am I getting a good return on my investment?”
The answer in most cases is it depends…
On the other hand, if you have a small marketing budget as recommended by the US Small Business Administration, you should be VERY concerned about traditional forms of marketing. These traditional costs can range from television, yellowpages, and regular flyers delivered to customers. These forms of advertising have HUGE drawbacks and most business owners are unaware of how technology is changing how their customers behave. I’ll briefly go over the disadvantages of these methods below.
1.It’s EXPENSIVE
A lot of business owners are still using the yellow pages to advertise their business. A quick call to your yellow pages customer service rep will tell you that it can cost you up to $3,600 per year to have your business listed at the top of their search results. And that doesn’t even include a website!!! The problem with this pricing structure is that most consumers, don’t even know the yellow pages exist. A quick look at the graph below and you you will see that there is a massive disparity between Google and Yellowpages when customers are looking for a business(blue line = yellow pages, red line = Google).
If you do flyers, it can cost you upwards of $1000 to deliver flyers which are typically not targeted. Much like “spam” hitting your email inbox, most people will throw away your flyer unless they see your ad, they need your service at the time, and they feel persuaded by your advertisement to come seek your business.
If you want to do television, it can cost $850 a week to run your commercial 2 a week. That can cost your compangy $3,400 a month.
2. It is not Targeted
Most traditional forms of marketing are very hard to calculate the “RETURN ON AD SPEND”. . When you spend $1,000 on an advertising campaign, did you get a return on your investment? Did you get $1,000 worth of revenue back? Did it help you close a major deal? Did your customer see your advertisement? Did they call you from the advertisement?
Traditional forms of marketing are VERY hard to track and measure the success of the campaign.
WHY DIGITAL MARKETING IS BETTER THAN TRADITIONAL FORMS OF ADVERTISING
After talking with countless business owners, I find that many “old school” business owners are still relying SOLELY on newspaper advertisements, yellowpages, and flyers to get their message out. Here are 4 good reasons why digital marketing is better.
1 Track Results
With a concise digital marketing plan in place, you can know exactly if your marketing campaign is working. You can measure things like who went to your website, what time are they going to your site, how many calls are you getting, how long are they staying and key demographics such as age, gender and location.
Newspaper advertisements and radio commercials can’t do that!
2.Forecasting
With more precise data, you can forecast future sales, and future expected costs. When you spend your marketing dollars on Google Ads, Website design, Facebook Ads and Google Search Engine Optimization Packages, you can confidently predict whether these marketing tactics will provide a solid return on your investment. Check out the formulas here.
3.Trend towards Digital Marketing
Get a jump on your competition is one way to stay competitive. Most business owners do not understand the buyers funnel and before you know it, it is too late. As more and more people search the internet looking for reviews, business websites and recommendations, spending your advertising budget on digital marketing will ensure a solid investment for your business for at least 5 years. Building Domain Authority, driving traffic to your site, and adding content to your website will ensure that your business will continue to have a steady stream of customers.
4. STRONG BUYER INTENT
What separates digital advertising from paper and print, shot gun approach is that most people who find your business online have a STRONG desire to buy. Spending your marketing budget on 100 people who have a strong interest in your industry is better than spending thousands of dollars sending 1,000 flyers to uninterested buyers.
CONCLUSION
As you can see, digital marketing is one of the best investments you can make for your B2C business. Getting in front of interested buyers can be very tricky, let us show you a plan on how to get more customers into your sales funnel by clicking here!
