Don't Give Up on 2022 — You Can Still Have a Big Year!

It’s always been interesting to see how client expectations of marketing spend vary from business to business. A lot of businesses start small, or run a short trial to get a feel for the ROI before committing to a full-on plan. Other businesses know exactly what they want to spend and go full-speed from the gate.

Other businesses are afraid to make a serious push in the middle of the year, because it’s been beaten into their heads that they need 6-12 months minimum to see results.

The reality of marketing ROI is as complex as a marketing plan itself. You can get the results you want, in a timeframe that’s reasonable, if you approach it the right way.

Working with hundreds of brands in Colorado, we’ve collected some marketing spend tips that can help you (still) have a big 2022!

1. Don't hire one person to do the tasks of an entire marketing team.

It’s exciting when a business starts generating enough revenue that hiring someone to help out with marketing is realistic. A big mistake we’ve seen businesses make in this phase of their growth is putting an entire marketing team’s responsibilities on one person. A social media manager shouldn’t also be a videographer, copywriter and graphic designer.

It’s also not realistic to expect a small business to be able to hire six employees when they can only afford one. For this situation, it’s much more efficient to hire an existing marketing team as an extension of your business. This often costs the same (or less) than one employee’s annual salary, and you get much better results.

2. Have realistic expectations of the ROI for your budget.

It’s hard to tell a business owner with a limited budget that they might not see life-changing ROI by throwing a few bucks at Google or Facebook. It’s understandable to want to spend a small amount testing out ads, but it’s important to find an agency that will be honest with you about expectations.

If you don’t have a huge budget for advertising right now, you have a few options that won’t waste your investment. Google PPC and social media ads — even with a modest budget — can provide instant ROI when left to the experts. However, your best bet is to create as much amazing content as possible and share it everywhere.

3. Get started now — any way that you can.

Don’t worry that you don’t have a full 12 months left in 2022 to start a big marketing push. Get started now, whether it’s research, putting a few extra hours into social content, or setting up a free email marketing campaign.

Combining SEO, PPC, inbound marketing and social media engagement will give you results in waves — you’ll see some results instantly, some in a few weeks, some in a few months, and some may take longer. But when everything’s working together, it’s quantifiably and exponentially more effective than any one approach on its own.

4. Don't waste your bidget by giving up too quickly.

The temptation is strong to change an ad every few days when it’s not generating leads — or to abandon a full campaign after just a month — but changing too quickly ends up costing a lot more money in the long run. It’s not uncommon to have a love/hate relationship with digital advertising algorithms, but let the AI do its thing!

Facebook ads in particular don’t do any good if you change them more often than two weeks at a time. Google ads are a bit more agile, but it’s still good to give the machine learning a few weeks before making adjustments.

5. Don't avoid a social media platform just because you personally don't love it.

You may be leaving money on the table if you avoid a specific social media platform. Just because you’d rather gouge your eyes out than post on Twitter doesn’t mean it might not be a great platform for your brand.

Don’t abandon Facebook just because it feels like an “old people” platform; 77% of Americans aged 30-49 are on Facebook. Don’t discount TikTok either because it feels like a “young people” platform. Over 84% of TikTok users are also on Facebook. There’s something for every audience on every platform.

Because marketing itself is both a measurable science and an inexact art, it can be hard to know what to expect when you start investing time and money into a real marketing strategy. While PPC ads can show results almost instantly, inbound tactics can take months to show significant change.

Some business owners postpone marketing campaigns if they feel like they won’t have enough time in the year to measure the return on their investment. But there’s still plenty of time in 2022 to make a push and see some significant results, within your budget.

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