At Contentworks we know brokers want to get noticed and stand out from the crowd. But all too often, when faced with managing a marketing budget, they focus on the wrong areas and go off track. The trick is, not to drain your marketing budget unnecessarily.
Sounds obvious right? But throwing valuable budget away is easier than you might think. Many brokers do it without even realising, so let’s look at 3 ways you could be wasting your marketing budget – and how to achieve more for less.
Offline marketing
Offline marketing has its place. Magazine articles, expo booths, posters all help to get you in the public eye and increase the visibility of your brand. That said; it must be done with great care. Knowing your target audience is essential as aiming your marketing at ‘any old passer-by’ simply won’t cut the mustard in the highly competitive FX and Blockchain space.
What’s more, in an increasingly digitised world where everything is tracked and monitored in order to get the best results, it’s important to have some kind of tracking in place – or at least have tangible goals that you aim to meet.
So what can you do?
- Have a QR code or landing page live at your booth or in your chosen magazine that drives traffic to your website. You’ll then be able to monitor the success of your code via tools such as Google Analytics . Encouraging physical interaction and tempting people to find out more about your company is not only a smart move but it helps you squeeze much more out of your offline efforts.
- If you’re attending a networking event, have a clear goal in mind such as collecting X amount of email addresses or handing out a certain number of business cards to those you consider to be your target audience. Keep in mind, however, that if you’re collecting data, you must comply with recent GDPR updates. This means gaining permission to use data and being transparent about what the data will be used for – and how long you’ll hold onto it. Yes, it’s a headache but it’s important to obey the regulations to avoid landing yourself in hot water.
Banner advertising
If content marketing is considered the hero of modern advertising, then is it fair to consider banners ads to be the villain (boo hiss)? Not necessarily. Let’s look at the positives to start with. Banner ads can work if you do them right. This means directing people to a well-optimised landing page with a clear call to action.
They should be placed appropriately to attract your target audience and all results should be carefully tracked. Only by setting very clear KPIs and keeping tabs on your marketing campaigns can you know if they’re working or not.
Now for the negatives. Firstly, 18-34 year olds are least likely to click on banner ads, so if this is your primary audience, you could be wasting precious marketing spend unnecessarily. Secondly 54 percent of internet users are thought to not click banner ads because they don’t trust them.
"As FX sector marketers, we have a responsibility not to perpetuate fake news." Charlotte Day @_contentworks at the @iFXEXPO pic.twitter.com/N6SRF4uIPA
— contentworks (@_contentworks) May 24, 2018
Thirdly, a whopping 60 percent of clicks on banner ads are believed to be unintentional – so if you do get people coming through to your site, they might bounce straight off, so this needs to be monitored.
All things considered, before you ditch banner ads altogether, you must:
- Look at your stats – are banner ads working for you? If yes, great! Your strategy may be spot on. If not, then it could be worth taking a different approach.
- Consider your target audience – online marketing moves fast and if you’re dealing primarily with the younger generation, it may be necessary to turn to authentic, interesting and educational content and video marketing rather than quick and flashy sales messages.
- Split test- run a series of banners with alternate text, CTAs, landing pages and colours to see which works best. Once you know, you can pour your budget into the ones that perform best.
SEO Agencies
Many companies see working with SEO agencies as a safe haven – an almost sure-fire way to get results even with a relatively ropey in-house marketing strategy. If you’re a broker that relies on SEO agencies to shoot you to the top of Google it could be time for a re-think. OK, many agencies are hugely successful and meet their marketing promises – but they often charge a large amount in the process.
To work out if you’re wasting funds you need to take a good hard look at your budget and cost up an organic marketing approach to see if you could get to the same positions without parting with loads of cash – money doesn’t grow on trees after all.
Organic content with long-tail keywords that’s engaging and meaningful gets picked up on Google snippets. Featured snippets appear at the top of Google’s organic search below the ad boxes – and that’s got to be good for business.
Again, before waving goodbye to any SEO agency collaboration, you must:
- Do your homework – look at your content and social strategy and assess the need for spending huge amounts.
- Strategise – come up with an organic strategy and work out how you’ll implement it. If you don’t have resources in house, outsourcing could be your next best bet.
- See if you can cut SEO costs and if you can combine paid marketing with organic marketing – after all, the two combined are often considered to work the best.
Finally, it is worth doing a complete marketing audit every 6 months – 1 year. This means assessing the different areas of spend within your department and evaluating whether they are working for you. There have been numerous cases of brokers spending fixed amounts each month for marketing services that they were not even aware of. Be vigilant and monitor the activities and success of each paid service.
Meet the @_contentworks solutions. There's Socially Sorted who can't keep off Twitter, Contented who's a complete blogging geek and Rockstar who's got it all covered! Learn more at https://t.co/BFf96f6JXt#socialmedia #marketingstrategy pic.twitter.com/ZFkDkSrI9s
— contentworks (@_contentworks) May 31, 2018
If you need help with organic content creation and hope to make good use of your marketing budget, speak to Contentworks Agency today. With a skilled team of creative finance writers, you can improve your online reputation, improve your acquisition and retain your audience.
