When I ask about how marketing is budgeted within an organization I find way too often that tradition has more influence then reality. Let me explain.
Click to Tweet This Post ★ Is Your Marketing Budget Smart Or Stupid? A Quick Test. ★
Even among some very smart senior marketing pros I often find that their budget allocations fail to adequately fund the most productive sources of new business leads. And I know some very smart CMOs. It’s getting better, but it is slow in coming.
To demonstrate this in presentations I like to use a simple experiment invent by David Meerman Scott. It quickly demonstrates how misaligned most marketing budgets are compared to how people make their buying decisions.
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Now David is the Tom Peters to marketing geeks like me. (You should add his blog Web Ink Now to your reading list if you don’t already.) Like Tom Peters, David is a visionary and a great guy.
He asked a few questions of audiences he spoke to worldwide about how they research products and services they were thinking about buying, recording their response, and got fundamentally the same answers.
He asked,
In last 1 to 2 months, in order to research a product or service you might want to buy, either personally or professionally, have you used….?
Direct mail, phone book, mainstream media, went to a trade show as a non-vendor, Google or other search engine, or asked your online social network (email/Facebook/Twitter) for advice and they sent you a URL you checked.
Here is how his audiences from around the world answered:
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Direct mail ad 2%
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Phone book (Yellow pages) 5%
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Mainstream media (TV, radio, magazines, newspapers) 20%
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Trade Show as a non-vendor 5%
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Google or other search engine ~100%
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Asked your online social network (email/Facebook/Twitter/other) for advice and they sent you a URL you checked 95%
Does your marketing budget reflect this reality?
You can watch Do the new rules of marketing work worldwide? here
About Steve Farnsworth @Steveology
Social media, communications, and content marketing. Strategy and implementation that generate leads, builds customer loyalty and word-of-mouth buzz. Contact 650-331-0594 to see how you can increase your market position and sales.
Frank_Strong (@Frank_Strong)
June 21, 2012
It’s so true, Steve and DMS’s video really places this into context. It makes such sense and yet collectively, we all seem to fall into this trap.
Jason
June 28, 2012
Based on those percentages, seems like an effective adWords campaign would greatly outweigh the benefit of tv commercials and print ads.
Steve Farnsworth A.K.A. @Steveology
June 29, 2012
It might. The real key is understanding how your product is talked about and researched. PPC can usually play an important role most sales that have some level of complexity and/or is a team buying decision. However, if you are the Golden Arches it might not be a fit.
Chris @ Lines HQ (@LinesGroup)
June 29, 2012
Another great blog post. DMS has for many years offered simple straight forward advice across the ‘new digital marketing’ platforms. I remember reading his book years ago and it changed my whole outlook.
They sometimes say statistics say what you want them to, but the evidence above is just too strong to ignore.
adam helweh
August 20, 2012
That photo scares the hell out of me.
Christine Perkett (@missusP)
March 19, 2013
Thanks Steve. Quick question, are said audiences that DMS is talking to comprised of B2C marketers/consumers or B2B marketers/consumers? Any such research done in a healthcare buying environment, by chance? Bet the answers are different, eh? This can’t be a one size fits all equation, unfortunately. I wish it were!
Steve Farnsworth (@Steveology)
March 25, 2013
The Divine @MissusP! It is a honor and a privilege to have you drop by my little blog. If I recall correctly he actually talked about that. When we spoke, DMS said that his audiences were mostly corporate people, some small business owners, but a full mix of B2B & B2C. As for industry, again the audiences were mixed for the most part, but I know some of the events were private corporate trainings, but I don’t know for which industries. He was taken by the universality of his results given the mixes. When I speak I like to do this exercise, and get the same results.
Sarah Skelly
April 17, 2013
Steve:
Love it!. Love it! Love it.
Love the photo!
Love how it demonstrates that people/business execs are such creatures of habit. Despite what the reality is.
Love Tom Peters [I'm a long-time fan] & David Meerman Scott.
Thanks for a great post.
@Sarah_at_Bounce