How to Reduce Digital Marketing Costs

Digital Marketing Costs Summary

In today's competitive business landscape, companies are constantly seeking advice from consultants to identify ways to reduce digital marketing costs while maintaining high-quality marketing efforts. One area where businesses can combat high costs is within their marketing departments. By adopting digital selling techniques and leveraging B2B live streaming, companies can significantly reduce their marketing employee costs without sacrificing the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Digital selling and live streaming offer cost-effective alternatives to traditional activities like pay-per-click and many other high value campaign, to combat high digital marketing costs.

These strategies help businesses reach a larger audience and generate higher engagement rates, ultimately leading to better ROI. In addition, digital tools such as Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager enable you to monitor and optimise your marketing efforts, focusing on high-converting strategies and further reducing overall digital marketing costs.

By embracing these innovative marketing approaches, businesses can maintain a strong marketing presence while keeping employee costs in check. The shift to digital selling and live streaming not only improves marketing ROI but also helps companies reach and engage with their total addressable market, fostering growth and success in the long run. Utilising Social 444 for automated social media posting and effective adverts are additional ways to reach prospects efficiently.

Contents: 

1. Introduction
2. Digital Marketing Costs - What is Needed
3. Combating High Digital Marketing Costs
4. B2B Live Streaming
5. Leveraging Marketing Automation
6. Outsourcing Marketing Functions
7. Utilising Freelancers and Contractors 
8. Investing in Employee Training and Development
9. Adopting Performance-Based Compensation
10. Key Takeaways
11. FAQs:
12. Conclusion

1. Introduction

High digital marketing costs are a significant drain on a business's resources. However, there are various strategies to reduce these expenses while maintaining effective marketing campaigns. This article will explore how businesses can combat high digital marketing costs through digital selling (not marketing), automation, outsourcing, and other cost-effective approaches.

2. Digital Marketing Costs - What is Needed

Digital marketing is a vital aspect of modern new business strategies. By focusing on digital channels such as email, social media, and content marketing, businesses can reach a wider audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods. This approach was intended to enable companies to optimise their marketing budget, keeping a control on digital marketing costs.

However, when it comes to B2B organisations, there has been a significant pressure on businesses to employ ALL the latest and up-to-date MarTech SaaS.  This has become a serious financial burden on businesses for the simple fact that it does not work, yet most businesses keep implementing any strategy they can.  This is very much like the fable of The Emperor's New Clothes.

What B2B organisations need is to revisit the basics of selling without having to deal with the noise from digital marketing and their demands for more budget.

In very simple terms, businesses, like yours and mine, buy new technology, SaaS or Services, when we need them.  No salesman has ever called and convinced us to buy wsomtheing without us having first identified a business need and estblished what we believed to be the necessary ROI of acquiring that item.

Over the past twenty years, the voice of digital marketing became more prominent.  Everyone seemed to be crushing it!  Marketing departments were given responsibility of 'first contact', i.e., BDRs and telesales began to report to marketing and graduallyall focus was directed to marketing to come up with the marketing qualified leads.  Ask a salesperson what they think of the MQLs they receive.  Better still, ask a salesperson what the supposed sales qualified leads are like and in most case, they just shake their heads in disgust.  The reason for this is that marketing departments have been given KPIs relating to external activity.

Many would think there's nothing wrong with this, however, 80% of browsers will click away from a form that demands a email address and 83% of businesses want to remain anonymous, self-serve and self-educate before speaking to a salesperson.    Therefore, being paid a bonus on a dwindling KPI is not much fun.  The next effort put in place by marketing is to implement 'gifting'.  This is supposed to be a method by which interested parties and kept engaged, however, no salesperson wojld ever adopt gifting as a way to engage with a procpet.  It's called bribery.  These are the tactics promoted by some of the largest marketing SaaS platforms in the world, all of whom are attempting to normalise bribing.

And when all else fails, the answer has always been, blame the saleperson for not being able to sell.   

To take control of digital marketing costs, you first have to control marketing and their attempts at engageging business.  You are not involved in B2C consumer sales and your prospectds are not buying jeans.

3. Combating High Digital Marketing Costs

High digital marketing costs are a significant challenge, however, implementing digital selling and B2B live streaming strategies will reduce these costs while still delivering the most effective marketing campaigns. Here's how:

Reducing the Need for Large Marketing Teams

Digital selling and B2B live streaming allow businesses to automate and streamline their marketing processes, reducing the need for large, costly marketing teams. By leveraging technology and focusing on targeted, personalised approaches, businesses can maintain a smaller, more efficient marketing team, ultimately cutting down on employee costs.

Leveraging Cost-Effective Channels

Traditional marketing methods, such as pay-per-click advertising, can be expensive and may not always deliver the desired results. Digital selling and B2B live streaming enable businesses to reach their target audience through more cost-effective channels. These strategies help companies maximise their marketing budgets while still delivering impactful campaigns.

Improving Marketing ROI

By implementing digital selling and B2B live streaming, businesses can improve their marketing ROI. These strategies enable companies to target prospects more effectively and nurture relationships, leading to higher conversion rates and long-term customer relationships. As a result, businesses can achieve better returns on their marketing investment, reducing the overall cost of marketing personnel.

4. B2B Live Streaming

B2B live streaming offers a unique opportunity for businesses to reach their total addressable market without relying on traditional pay-per-click advertising costs, significantly reducing digital marketing costs. Here are some key advantages of using live streaming in your marketing strategy:

Cost Savings

Compared to any other form of prospect engagement, B2B live streaming is the most cost-effective marketing strategy available. By leveraging this approach, businesses can maximise their marketing budgets while still delivering high-quality, engaging content to their target audience.  It is basic maths.  You employ two or three people to host and deliver a live show to your total addreassable market (TAM) every week.  If your TAM is 10,000, you email them inviting them to your show.  Between 1% to 15% start their buying journey evey week. 

You could not employ enough telesales, BDRs or marketers to reach that many people.  Current telesales success rates are running at 300-1.  It takes a week to find someone who might be interested in your product or service.  Through live streaming, you could be talking to 100-1500 people every week, enabling them yto get to know, like and trust you before they buy from you.   

Expanding Reach

Live streaming enables businesses to reach a broader audience, as viewers can remain anonymous and attend your live show events from anywhere in the world. This expanded reach helps businesses tap into new markets and connect with potential customers they may not have been able to reach through traditional marketing channels.

Increased Engagement

Live streaming allows businesses to interact with their audience in real-time, creating a more engaging experience. By hosting live events, and product demonstrations, businesses can provide valuable information and showcase their expertise, attracting a larger audience and generating leads.

Building Trust and Authenticity

By offering live streaming events, businesses can present an authentic and transparent image to their audience. This approach helps to build trust and credibility, positioning the company as a reliable partner in the industry.

In conclusion, implementing digital selling and B2B live streaming can help businesses combat high marketing employee costs by streamlining marketing processes, leveraging cost-effective channels, and improving marketing ROI. By adopting these strategies, companies can maintain an efficient marketing team and generate better returns on their marketing investment.

5. Leveraging Marketing Automation

Please dont confuse my explanation of Marketing automation with that of demand generation platforms such as Marketo or Hubspot; these SaaS products do more to restrict new business than to increase it.  Other automation tools can help businesses streamline their marketing processes, reducing the need for manual intervention and additional staff, by automating repetitive tasks such as email campaigns, and social media posting, enabling companies to save both time and money on employee costs.

Using strategies like Social 444 for automated posting on social media and live streaming for engaging online shows can help businesses increase their reach without increasing employee costs.  In fact you are able to reduce employee and digital marketing costs at the same time.

6. Outsourcing Marketing Functions

Over time, I recommend you outsource specific marketing functions to specialised agencies or freelancers who can help your business access expertise and services at a lower cost than recruiting, hiring and training in-house employees. This approach allows you to focus your resources on core business activities while benefiting from the expertise of external marketing professionals.

7. Utilising Freelancers and Contractors

Hiring freelancers or contractors on a project basis can be a cost-effective way to manage marketing tasks without the need for full-time employees. By bringing in external talent for specific projects or campaigns, businesses can control costs and maintain a flexible workforce that adapts to your changing needs, especially in terms of using live streaming, video and podcasting as vehicles to reach your total addressable market.

You will have seen platforms such as PeoplebytheHour, Fiverr and Upwork where independent freelancers retgister and provide digital services.  This is especially a option when it comes to live streaming and social 444 as the content is to be created in advance and then 'set-and-forget' for up to eighteen months to two years.  

8. Investing in Employee Training and Development

Investing in the ongoing training and development of your marketing team can lead to increased efficiency and productivity, offsetting the costs of training. Well-trained employees can develop and execute more effective marketing strategies, ultimately generating a higher return on investment for your marketing budget.

That said, you will need to evaluate their relevance and usefulness if they are not prepared to embrace the new technologies and methodologies when it comes to live streaming, video and podcasting. 

Whilst the marketing element is not very different, the technical side of media productions is.  This is where you will find out if your staff have outside hobbies that may benefit your business or indeed if they're prepared to start learning new skills. 

9. Adopting Performance-Based Compensation

Existing KPI related bonuses for marketing teams is damaging to the success of your business.  It give a false sense of achievement to marketers whilst sales teams can be suffering from a lack of proper leads.  Whilst implementing a performance-based compensation model for marketing employees had been an option in the past, working in conjunction with salespeople, it is entirely possible to implement a group bonus renumeration package.

This approach encourages employees to deliver better results because of their awareness that they're all responsible for driving revenue growth and business success.

10. Key Takeaways

1. Adjusting digital marketing costs to reach a wider audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.
2. Leverage live streaming and marketing automation tools to streamline marketing processes and reduce the need for manual intervention.
3. Outsource specific marketing functions to specialised agencies or freelancers to access expertise at a lower cost.
4. Utilise freelancers and contractors on a project basis to maintain a flexible and cost-effective workforce.
5. Invest in ongoing employee training and development to improve efficiency and productivity.
6. Adopt group-based compensation bonus model to incentivise results and control costs.

11. FAQs

How to keep digital selling costs down and increase exposure?

Digital selling costs can be kept to a minimum by embracing digital selling and live streaming, automating processes and leveraging technology. By implementing digital selling techniques, such as live streaming, email marketing, social media marketing, and content marketing, businesses can reduce their reliance on large marketing teams, ultimately decreasing employee costs. Digital selling also allows for better targeting and tracking, enabling businesses to optimise their efforts and focus on high-converting strategies.

What are the benefits of using B2B live streaming in marketing strategies?

B2B live streaming offers several benefits in marketing strategies, including increased engagement, building trust and authenticity, expanding reach, and cost savings. Live streaming provides real-time interaction, allowing businesses to connect with their audience and create strong relationships. It also showcases the company's expertise, humanising the brand and establishing credibility. Live streaming can reach a wider audience compared to traditional advertising methods, and it's often more cost-effective.

How can businesses improve their marketing ROI by implementing digital selling and live streaming?

Businesses can improve their marketing ROI by implementing digital selling and live streaming because these strategies often require less investment compared to traditional marketing methods, like pay-per-click advertising. Digital selling techniques and live streaming can generate higher engagement rates and help businesses reach a wider audience. Additionally, by using digital analytics and tracking tools, businesses can make data-driven decisions, further optimising their marketing efforts and improving ROI.

How does live streaming help expand a company's reach in the market?

Live streaming helps expand a company's reach in the market by enabling businesses to connect with their audience in real-time, across various platforms. By utilising live streaming, companies can engage with a larger audience, including potential customers who may not have been aware of their brand or offerings. Live streaming also provides an opportunity to showcase the company's expertise and thought leadership, further attracting new prospects and expanding the company's reach.

Are there any cost-effective alternatives to traditional pay-per-click advertising campaigns?

Yes, there are cost-effective alternatives to traditional pay-per-click advertising campaigns. Some of these alternatives include content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and live streaming. These strategies often require less upfront investment and can generate higher engagement rates, leading to better ROI. Additionally, by leveraging digital tools, businesses can optimise their marketing efforts and focus on high-converting strategies, further reducing their overall marketing costs.

12. Conclusion

Combating high digital marketing costs is crucial for businesses seeking growth and profitability. By embracing digital selling, leveraging automation, outsourcing marketing functions, utilising freelancers and contractors, investing in employee training and development, and adopting performance-based compensation models, companies can significantly reduce their marketing employee costs without sacrificing performance. Implementing these strategies will ensure a more efficient, cost-effective marketing process that drives revenue growth and business success.

If you've read this far, let's have a chat about some of the different tactics you could employ to reach your marketing and scale up :)