While social media really does some amazing things to bring in an audience, advertising goes straight to it. The social media and other forms of on line marketing are essentially creating an audience of some kind. This audience is then targeted for sales. There are, however, a large section of your potential buyers/clients who will not become part of your audience. These people can simply be advertised to. It has been seen by many that advertising is "old school" and ineffective. This is not the case. If done wisely can be the most effective way of getting sales.
It is important to remember that it is the ROI (return on investment) that counts. If you spend $1000 on advertising and get $10 000 in sales with a profit margin of 20% Then your profit is $1000 after the advertising costs are factored in. If you spend three weeks doing a social media campaign which results in $10 000 sales your profit is $2 000 but you have to factor in time spent. If over the three weeks you spend 100 hours working on the campaign then the difference of $1 000 is at a rate of $10 per hour. Is it worth working for $10 an hour?
Although you may have paid out less money, the cost in time is important. This is where many people see the difference. Yes you will need the money to start off with, but the difference can be spectacular. There are many who sell on line products who see a 3 to 1 return (ROI). Places like Facebook have shown many on line sellers this kind of return. They invest around $30 000 in adverts and get $90 000 in sales. If you only have a profit margin of 20% then this will not work. That is because 20% of $90 000 is $18 000. So spending $30 000 on advertising means you lost $12 000 after doing all the sales. However many sales on line have an almost 100% profit margin because they are electronic products. These are things like training programs and information. They can be duplicated with no extra cost. The only thing used up is band width which is cheap for most people.
In this way, although going the free route could bring you sales, if you advertised instead you could focus on the sales. The ROI is lower but the time spent is less. It comes down to what you value most.
What is important is to keep in mind that advertising still works. What is also important is to keep in mind that there are production costs to be added to the advertising costs. Going the advertising route and not paying for an advert or commercial to be made is a bit strange. You are going the route of spending money, over that of time, so D.I.Y. is not the most brilliant choice. Advertising is more expensive so needs to be more effective. The quality of the commercial can affect the response rate to it. With all the money spent on the advertising, it makes sense to use a professional video production company to make the video. The cost factor is minimal in big advertising budgets. A good quality advert or commercial can cost as low as $1000 or $2000 if you find the right company. There are video production companies who charge over $10 000 and even $100 000 for a commercial but they are not needed in this case. Unless you are trying to launch a new soda drink into the market, these are an over-kill.
Most targeted advertising just need to be good, not the best. This is where most corporate video production companies come in. They may not be winning awards for their production work but that is not what matters. What matters is the quality of work they can supply. At this point it is also good to mention that a good voice over artist can go along way to making your video pop.
It is important to remember though, that video production companies are not marketing companies.
The marketing companies or online marketing companies come up with the concept for the advertising campaign and the video production companies create the advert. Some marketing companies even work out the best platform, and repetition rate etc, for the most effective use of the advert. The marketing company however ads more cost of investment. That means lower ROI. Or does it? If your advertising is not effective it may cost you more than you get back. Using a marketing company, can in many cases, not only improve your chances of being effective with your marketing campaign but can often help it not to be a total failure. Many people are working on the idea that all advertising campaigns are effective and its just about being the most effective.This is not always the case.Many advertising campaigns fall flat and have next to no return.This can result in all the advertising spend resulting in just about no return.That is just like throwing the money away.
Unless you don't have any money to invest in a proper marketing campaign it helps to get the experts in. At the same time it is also important to remember that even the experts get it wrong sometimes. There have been advertising companies who have got it spectacularly wrong at times. These campaigns have not only not resulted in more sales but have damaged the brand in the process. There are some well known soda commercials that come to mind. Some companies have even been boycotted after a marketing campaign. These spectacular failures by marketing companies are not the norm though. The marketing companies would not be in business for long if their campaigns were always failing.
So where to begin? First figure out how much you can spend and comfortably effort to lose without any return. Advertising. although not as addictive is still a gamble but in the case of business a very necessary one.
Then if your budget affords, chose a marketing and branding company. If that is not in the budget find the best video production company you can afford. If that is not in the budget, begin a campaign of prayer. If that doesn't suit you just go with wishful thinking. Jokes aside. Marketing is serious business and should have have the money spent on it.
If you seriously want to market your business you need to get over the idea that it is cheap and easy.
The most successful businesses have the best marketing campaigns. It's a simple as that. So you need to choose. Is it a risk worth taking? Only you can decide that.
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