Methods by which we conduct traditional marketing usually include advertising through newspapers, magazines, telephone books, radio and television. A fee is charged based on the impressions earned by each medium and the size of the advertisement. So if a magazine has 40,000 copies that go out, you pay for 40,000 eyeballs. If a television ad airs when there is a show that has a loyal viewership of 1.2 million, you pay for the 1.2 million.
The internet age has done some damage to the methodology on which the above is based. First, we don't consume news and content the same ways that we used to. It is rare to be an exclusive newspaper reader when you are confronted with news on your desktop all day. It is also rare to watch television with advertisements in the mix because most find them a bit annoying and we can consume that content elsewhere where there is no disruption of our enjoyment with sponsored messages.
While this has resulted in the perceived deaths of a few industries, there are also opportunities for the ultra popular versions of each of these. From the ad-buying side, prices have gone down in most publications. But in ultra-popular publications the ad buying has skyrocketed. This is the Superbowl theory at work. So many eyes, a captive audience, an anticipation of the content within: higher ad prices.
For companies where brand awareness generates the largest component of their consumer loyalty, the above still works. And it works hard. The trouble is that it is extremely expensive and the average company (average we will define as resting below a $10 million annual revenue) cannot afford to be impactful in most circumstances.
This is a strategy that many companies are still seeing success with. Typically a company will attach themselves to a cause and drive a loyalty in fellow supporters through a familiar association. It becomes comfortable to do business with them because there is a trust element that encourages a relationship with the customer.
These are a viable option for companies that have fairly substantial marketing budgets. They have the power to be impactful when they are used strategically. Same old doesn't really fly here, you need the creative element to make things stick out and create a lasting impression of your business. This is where the big ideas people come into the picture. You need a creative whiz on your side to make your business sing a little louder than the rest of them. Ideas people are excellent, but you need to make sure you have an ideas person that knows how to execute as well. This is the difference between a big thinker and a great marketer.
Smaller budgets are seeing traditional marketers flock to the flyer and direct mail trend. This will work for certain business types that are looking to hit the homeowner at certain times of year. These are less expensive campaigns and they still have pull with demographics that are less tech savvy and like to sift through their mail.
Here is where the numbers start to get compelling. How do we market most effectively with the dollars that we are putting aside to help grow our business? Lets look at the last part of that statement... "help grow our business." We market to make our business more known and to earn the business of people in the market for what we sell or do. Growth is the key component to marketing. If you aren't growing, you're doing it wrong.
A recent study by Seven found that only 10% of people have a positive attitude towards advertising from brands. So if we consider the numbers we have looked at above, of the 40,000 people reading the magazine, only 10% of them appreciate and feel good about the fact that you're there. You are paying for the 40,000, only 4,000 of them are worth spending your money on. And of that 4,000, how many are in the market for what you are offering?
Conversely 77% of people suggested that they prefer content to traditional advertising. While 57% said that they definitely or tend to agree that they feel more positive towards brands that produce content for them. This is a very interesting change of pace for the marketing industry as a whole. In Niagara, lets take a look at what this looks like:
Major Newspaper Advertising Cost:
$1400 - 2-inch by 4-inch advertisement in magazine with 44,000 distribution
$1400 - 1 month of content marketing (at 2 blog posts per week and dissemination) + included is your $200 in HubSpot subscription
When you consider the cost of marketing in the traditional sense to the cost of marketing to an audience with unlimited potential, things get a little more interesting. If you are willing to spend $1 a day on pushing your content through Facebook advertising, you get the benefit of reaching nearly 1400 people daily (this varies based on your ad specs) through sponsored posting. Those turn into likes and that turns into free captive audience. This means that in one medium alone (remember that content marketing also generates website traffic, is pushed through Twitter, Pinterest and any other number of social networks you choose to use) you are capturing 30,000 views. That is only 14,000 short of what your magazine is getting you, and Facebook is rarely the number one driver of traffic to a site. Plus the impact is sustainable and your website will continue to work hard for your business beyond the month of payment.
That is just an illustration of what you can do with content, and the success of the strategy isn't actually measured in eyeballs but in dollars earned. So the below would actually be a more accurate way of determining success:
$1400 / mo. in marketing fees gets you:
- 2 blog posts per month
- social media management of 3 channels
- website optimization
- SEO monitoring
- marketing automation
Average traffic from the above services: 700 hits per month
Average conversation rate: 2%
Reasonable number of leads to expect: 14
Average number of leads prepared to close: 7
For the sake of illustration, lets assume that we are working with a fencing company (reasonable close rate assumption is 50% of jobs quoted) and that each job would be on average $2000. 7 leads at $2000 actually earns the business $14,000 of revenue. The cost of marketing that is $1400 / mo. That means that to earn $2000 the business spent $100. That is an outstanding return on investment, and that is what inbound marketing has the potential to do for your business.
We will expand more in future blog posts, but the above should give you an idea of why committing to content generation is a great way to grow your business. I used the H&C numbers in this post to give you an idea of cost when it comes to working with an agency, but the same numbers (maybe slightly higher) would apply to using your internal team. Inbound not only works, it works hard for your company on a continuing basis. Connect with us to make sure that you are marketing not only effectively, but efficiently.