Marketing First Steps: Planning, Budgeting & Hiring (Series: Digital Marketing Tips for the New (Or Old!) Business Owner 2020)

2
Practical and entertaining education for
attorneys, accountants, business owners and
executives, and investors.

Disclaimer
The material in this webinar is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered
legal, financial or other professional advice. You should consult with an attorney or other
appropriate professional to determine what may be best for your individual needs. While
Financial Poise™ takes reasonable steps to ensure that information it publishes is accurate,
Financial Poise™ makes no guaranty in this regard.
3

Meet the Faculty
MODERATOR:
Joshua Lyons - Owner of Joshua Lyons Marketing, LLC; Co-Founder of CRE Marketing Group
PANELISTS:
Linda Zappulla - KU/UMKC
Bill Schick - Mesh Interactive Agency
4

About This Webinar -
Marketing First Steps: Planning, Budgeting & Hiring
One of the most critical components to an entrepreneur’s success is well planned and
strategic marketing implementation. But, what should a business owner know if they wish to
be successful with their marketing?
Three fundamental elements of marketing include planning, budgeting and hiring. With a well
defined plan, the business owner will be able to set realistic goals and measurements for
success. With proper budgeting, the owner will be able to know how much they should spend,
and plan their marketing tactics accordingly. And hiring skilled marketing staff can be
incredibly beneficial, but there are considerations to be made when hiring.
In the first episode of this webinar, we provide details designed to give business owners
expert marketing advice pertaining to marketing planning, budgeting and hiring.
5

About This Series - Digital Marketing Tips for the
New (Or Old) Business Owner 2020
Approximately 83,300 small businesses in the United States are closed every year because
of ineffective marketing. This indicates many business owners are unknowledgeable of how to
leverage the power of marketing. While this is unfortunate, it is not surprising. There are
countless marketing companies trying to sell their services, and these services range from
billboards, to social media marketing, to telemarketing and more. Though these marketing
tactics can be very effective, improper planning can lead to failure. As such, this webinar
series is designed to educated business owners on how to prepare, execute and refine their
own customized marketing initiatives. After finishing this webinar series, the business owner
should have a much clearer and strategic plan for their own marketing.
Each Financial Poise Webinar is delivered in Plain English, understandable to investors, business owners, and
executives without much background in these areas, yet is of primary value to attorneys, accountants, and other
seasoned professionals. Each episode brings you into engaging, sometimes humorous, conversations designed to
entertain as it teaches. Each episode in the series is designed to be viewed independently of the other episodes so that
participants will enhance their knowledge of this area whether they attend one, some, or all episodes.
6

Episodes in this Series
#1: Marketing First Steps: Planning, Budgeting & Hiring
Premiere date: 1/22/20
#2: Which Marketing Channels Should You Use, And Why?
#3: You're Ready to Start Marketing. Now What?
7

Episode #1
Marketing First Steps: Planning, Budgeting & Hiring
8

Overview Of Traditional & Digital Marketing
• All marketing activity can be split into two types. The type of marketing that has been
around the longest is called traditional marketing. Some common examples of traditional
marketing include the following:
 Store Signs
 Billboards
 Printed Promotional Material
 Networking & Referral Marketing
 Telemarketing
 Business Cards
 Radio Spots
 Television Commercials
 Etc.
9

• The second type of marketing is called digital marketing. Although this type of marketing
has only been around for a couple decades, it has become a highly effective method for
business owners to market themselves. Examples of digital marketing include the following:
 Websites
 Email Marketing
 Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
 Social Media Marketing (SMM)
 Content Marketing
 Etc.
10

• When thinking of marketing, new business owners often immediately think of the need to
promote themselves through billboards, postcard mailers and other forms of traditional
marketing. However, while this may be effective for some businesses, it’s often less effective
for small businesses with a limited budget. This is because traditional marketing tends to have
a much lower ROI and also tends to be far more costly than digital marketing. It can also be
much more challenging to track ROI on traditional marketing than it is for digital marketing.
And while medium and large-sized businesses can more easily afford and benefit from
traditional marketing, they too rely heavily on digital marketing.
11

• Because digital marketing is a good fit for nearly all businesses, regardless of size and
budget, this webinar series is focused completely on digital marketing. However, some
elements of this series may be applied to traditional marketing. For example, in this first
episode we discuss planning, budgeting and hiring. While these principles are applicable for
digital marketing, they are also applicable for traditional marketing. Regardless of the types of
marketing used, the material presented in this first episode is highly relevant for all business
owners and marketers who wish to effectively market themselves.
• In the three following slides we present key considerations related to planning, hiring and
budgeting. Business owners should familiarize themselves with each of these points, so as to
make the best possible marketing decisions.
12

Planning
• Key concepts associated with planning include the following:
Create a marketing plan.
Set realistic goals.
Decide on appropriate strategies.
Select relevant tactics.
Establish a reasonable timeline.
Decide on an appropriate budget.
13

Budgeting
• Key concepts associated with budgeting include the following:
Set an appropriate budget based on best practices.
Don’t under spend.
Don’t over spend.
Gauge your return on investment.
Adjust your budget as needed.
14

Hiring
• Key concepts associated with hiring include the following:
Quality and experience make a difference.
Marketing is broad. Hire for specific roles.
Consider your options (Freelance, Agency, In-House).
Think about taxes and benefits.
Don’t settle with mediocrity.
15

Why Marketing Requires Your Attention
• Accelerate Business Growth
• Avoid Harmful Or Irrelevant Marketing Practices
• Have A Plan And Process For Measuring Success
• Enables You To Focus On Your Business
• Effective Budgeting And ROI
16

Accelerated Business Growth
• A well strategized and effectively executed marketing plan will help a business
accomplish it’s marketing goals. These goals should be centered around business growth
and reputation.
• Below are some examples of common marketing goals:
 Increase sales by X percent.
 Generate an additional X leads per quarter.
 Increase brand awareness by X percent.
 Improve customer/client retention by X percent.
17

• While planning and executing goals will help the business grow, properly planning
and executing strategies will help a business owner accomplish their goals. Let’s use the
goal of “Generate an additional X leads per quarter” as an example. If that’s the goal,
here are some strategies that might be used to accomplish that goal.
 Use email marketing to stay at top-of-mind to clients and to reach out to
prospective clients.
 Blog as a means to increase trust and credibility with prospective leads.
 Create clear call-to-actions across various marketing channels, including the
website, to funnel prospective clients into a sales funnel.
18

• Strategies will help a business owner accomplish their marketing goals. But, in order
to effectively execute the strategies, it’s vital for the business owner to plan out and use
appropriate marketing tactics. Tactics are the specific actions implemented to accomplish
the strategy. Let’s use the strategy of “Use email marketing to stay at top of mind to
clients and to reach out to prospective clients” as an example. Here are some tactics one
might use:
 Design two email templates that are mobile-friendly and include a clear call-to-
action buttons. One template for existing clients and one for prospective clients.
 Send a monthly email to clients, with subtle messaging to upsell them.
 Send a monthly email to non-clients. These should promote a different product
or service each month, to pull prospective clients into the sales funnel.
19

Avoid Harmful Or Irrelevant Marketing Practices
• As stated earlier, approximately 83,300 business close in the United States every
year because of ineffective marketing.
• Below are examples of how harmful or irrelevant marketing practices might happen:
 Not investing the marketing budget in the best possible strategies and tactics.
 Not being patient. Many marketing strategies and tactics can take months, or
even years, before they start generating optimal results. For example, while a
business owner can expect to start seeing results from Google Ads as soon as
they start being used, it usually takes around six months to start getting optimal
results from this type of marketing. Have a realistic expectation regarding the
timeline.
20

• [Examples Continued]
 Investing in marketing strategies and tactics that are not the best fit for the
budget or for the industry. For example, if a business owner has $500 a month
for their marketing, they should most likely not invest in Google Ads, if they are
in a highly competitive industry, such as banking or financial planning. Their
budget will quickly be depleted and the ROI will likely be very low or zero.
However, a tree removal business could do extremely well with Google Ads at
$500 per month. This is especially true if their customers are in a market that
was recently hit by a strong hurricane.
21

 Using black-hat tactics to see quick results. For example, search engine optimization
(SEO) is the practice of making your website rank well on Google, without paying for
ads. There are a number of tactics that will make a website quickly rank well in
search engines, but will also put the website in danger of being blacklisted by
Google. For example, purchasing backlinks from third party websites can be very
risky. If the backlinks aren’t a high enough quality, Google may significantly penalize
the website or remove the website entirely from search results. There are many
black-hat SEO tactics that an unexperienced marketer may unknowingly use. Be
sure to follow best practices for any type of marketing used in a marketing plan.
22

Have A Plan And Process For
Measuring Success
• Another harmful practice is not identifying key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are the
primary metrics used to identify what constitutes as success. For example, if a business owner
wishes to use email marketing as a strategy, here are some related KPIs they might use:
 Increase email subscribers by 30% year-over-year. That is a key metric they can
quantifiably measure. After one year, did the subscription base increase by 30%? If
so, great! If not, why not?
 Increase average email open-rate from X% to Y%.
 Increase average email click-through-rate from X% to Y%.
 Send two emails per month.
23

Have A Plan And Process For
Measuring Success
• If a business is new, and has never done any type of marketing, it may be more challenging
to decide on realistic KPI goals. If the KPI goals aren’t reached, that isn’t necessarily a bad
thing. This gives the business owner a more realistic perspective on what the goals should
be for the following year. Also, after reviewing the marketing performance over the previous
year, the marketing practices should be adjusted, to get better results. With strategic
adjustments, the same goals might be more attainable in the second year of marketing.
• New business owners with no frame of reference for setting realistic KPI goals should do
online research to see what standard goals are for their industry. For example, businesses
in the retail industry tend to see much lower open-rates than those in the real estate
industry.
24

Enables You To Focus On Your Business
• Planning out a marketing will take time and attention. However, once the goals, strategies,
tactics and KPIs are decided upon, it will be much easier for the business owner to execute
the marketing plan, or hire someone else who can do this on their behalf. Below are some
examples of how proper marketing planning can help a business owner focus on their
business.
 Business owners are often bombarded by marketing companies who wish to sell
them their services. This can distract the business owner from running the business,
and if the sales person is skilled enough, they may convince the business owner to
use a marketing service that isn’t the best fit for the company. Having a solid
marketing plan will help the business owner know exactly what is, and what is not,
relevant. As a result, the business owner can focus more on the business and less
on marketing sales people.
25

 If a business owner knows exactly what needs to be done for their marketing,
and they have clear KPIs, they can hire marketing staff to manage the
marketing on their behalf. Because a plan was created, there will be no
ambiguity as to what exactly the marketing staff is responsible for. And, the
marketing staff can be evaluated based on a clearly defined set of objectives.
Because of the marketing plan, the business owner does not need to take the
time to figure out if the marketing staff is doing a good job, or deciding what
success looks like. As a result, the business owner can focus on other business
related responsibilities.
26

 Perhaps the most significant example is that when a business owner has a solid
marketing plan, and hires accordingly, they do not need to spend the time
marketing themselves. Rather than spending time and energy on marketing,
they can spend that same amount of time and energy on growing their business
(in ways other than marketing). Marketing takes time. Is this time best spent by
the business owner, or by someone who is experienced in marketing and works
for the business owner? Each situation is different, but this is a question the
business owner should answer. And if hiring staff makes sense, this can be very
beneficial to the growth of the company.
27

• For the business owner who decides to hire marketing staff, there are some
additional hiring tips to consider.
 Should the business owner hire a freelancer, agency or create an in-house
marketing team? There are pros and cons to each of these options. While many
business owners might jump to the conclusion they should hire an in-house
person to handle marketing, that may, or may not, be the best solution. Do a
little more research before deciding how to proceed on this front.
 Be cautious of “cheap” marketing staff. While it is possible to find an outstanding
freelancer, agency or employee for an incredibly low cost, it should also be a
red flag if someone is offering their services for a suspiciously low rate.
28

• [Hiring Tips Continued]
 Related to the previous point, keep in mind you may need to hire multiple “cheap”
marketing providers before you get the quality you’re looking for. And you may never
get the quality you’re looking for. So, ask yourself if you’re willing to hire a cheap
marketing solution multiple times, If the first person you hire doesn’t work out. And,
how many times are you willing to do this? Experience and quality matter. So, keep
this in mind when hiring.
 Don’t settle with a mediocre marketing provider. If the work is just “okay” then that’s
how your business will be perceived by your target audience. Do you want to be
“okay” or do you want to be “top-notch?” How you are perceived will be directly
controlled by the quality of the marketing person you hire.
29

• [Hiring Tips Continued]
 If you hire an in-house marketing staff, be sure to consider the additional costs
associated with taxes and benefits. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider hiring
marketing employees. Just be sure to calculate more than the hourly rate when you
do your budgeting.
 Lastly, hire according to your needs. Digital marketing is a very broad field. As such,
there are many specializations. A graphic designer isn’t necessarily the best person
for building a website. A developer isn’t always good at SEO. An SEO person isn’t
necessarily qualified to mange PPC marketing, and so on. What do you need? Hire
for that role, and don’t make the mistake of assuming that person can handle all your
marketing needs.
30

Effective Budgeting And ROI
• One of the greatest challenges for a business owner is knowing how much to spend on
their marketing and knowing how much to expect for return on investment. There is no general
one size fits all answer to how much a marketing budget should be, or what the ROI will be.
There are too many factors that impact this. However, there are some general rules a
business owner should consider when deciding on their budget and calculating ROI. Here are
some of the most important rules:
 Rather than arbitrarily coming up with a specific budget, decide on your budget
based on a percentage of your gross revenue. For example, the Small Business
Administration recommends small businesses spend about 7-8 percent of their gross
revenue on marketing. Do research on what percentage you should spend, based on
your gross revenue.
31

 As previously mentioned, don’t expect to immediately make back the money
invested in marketing. Depending on your strategies and tactics, it often takes about
3-12 months before you start seeing good results from marketing. Marketing is an
investment the yields the greatest results in the future.
 Make sure the budget is invested in marketing channels that are known to result in a
high ROI for your industry. For example, even though social media marketing is a
popular type of marketing, it may not be the best fit for a CPA. Content marketing
and SEO may be a better fit for a CPA. Alternatively, a dance studio or restaurant
can do quite well with social media marketing. Invest the marketing budget in
channels that make the most sense.
32

 Be sure to track KPIs and sales generated through marketing efforts. For example,
how many leads came in through email marketing? And, how many of those leads
turned into sales? What was the average revenue generated per sale? If these
numbers are tracked, it’ll be far easier to adjust the marketing budget in the future,
based on what worked best.
 Consider using the 70/30 rule. In subsequent years, spend 70% of the budget on
marketing channels you know worked well. Then, spend 30% of the marketing
budget on untested marketing channels that seem like they should work well.
Repeat this process each year to constantly evolve the marketing plan and improve
the overall ROI.
33

About The Faculty
Joshua Lyons - josh@jjlyonsmarketing.com
Joshua Lyons, Co-Founder of CRE Marketing Group, has been part of the marketing world since 2009.
He began his marketing career upon graduation from the University of West Florida, with an education in
public relations and marketing. Joshua worked for several companies, developing and implementing
proven online marketing strategies and boosting their exposure and revenue. After many years of
marketing, in commercial real estate, hospitality and other industries, Joshua began his own marketing
company, Joshua Lyons Marketing, LLC. He launched his business in 2015 and continues to provide
marketing services for clients around the United States. Joshua works with new businesses,
entrepreneurs, larger established companies and organizations that are internationally recognized.
Additionally, his clients range in industry from banking, home repair, medical, professional coaching and
more. His company provides a variety of marketing services, but the core services offered include
website development, content writing and search engine optimization. Those who wish to learn about
marketing can read his company blog, which is designed to help individuals and marketing teams as they
develop their own online marketing strategies.
35

About The Faculty
Linda Zappulla - linda.zappulla@gmail.com
Linda Zappulla, Founder and Senior Consultant, Workshops and the Work. Linda has more than 25 years
of marketing experience, working in and leading every marketing discipline for highly regarded consumer
brands as well as start-up ventures. As founder and senior consultant with Workshops and the Work, she
provides solutions to marketing needs of business, while teaching and mentoring their employees to
enhance their marketing capabilities, and increase their engagement and retention. As Director of Brand
Marketing at Payless ShoeSource, she provided cross-functional leadership, helping Payless deliver its
new strategy to transition from a private label purveyor to become a House of Brands. Prior to joining
Payless, Linda was Vice President of Marketing for Birch Telecom, a Kansas City based local telephone
company. Prior to that she served in a number of strategic marketing and brand management functions
for consumer products companies such as Revlon, Lenox China and Corning Glass. Linda received her
MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and her undergraduate degree from
Barnard College. She is a Certified Mentor at SCORE, Kauffman FastTrac Alumna, volunteer with foreign
exchange students, and President-elect at Congregation Beth Torah.
36

About The Faculty
Bill Schick - billschick@meshagency.com
Over the last 20 years, Bill has developed a unique approach to helping his clients develop
unique and effective approaches to solving complex and lengthy sales and marketing
challenges. He couples traditional business and marketing theories, strategies, and tactics
with current/leading tools, technologies, and creative trends to help businesses develop
and deliver true value to prospects, customers, and their communities. He finds the most
effective approach to business and marketing to be through altruism—help your communities
and in turn they will help you.
37

Questions or Comments?
If you have any questions about this webinar that you did not get to ask during the live
premiere, or if you are watching this webinar On Demand, please do not hesitate to email us
at info@financialpoise.com with any questions or comments you may have. Please include
the name of the webinar in your email and we will do our best to provide a timely response.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The material in this presentation is for general educational purposes
only. It has been prepared primarily for attorneys and accountants for use in the pursuit of
their continuing legal education and continuing professional education.
38

About Financial Poise
39
DailyDAC LLC, d/b/a Financial Poise™ provides
continuing education to attorneys, accountants,
business owners and executives, and investors. It’s
websites, webinars, and books provide Plain English,
entertaining, explanations about legal, financial, and
other subjects of interest to these audiences.
Visit us at www.financialpoise.com
Our free weekly newsletter, Financial Poise
Weekly, updates you on new articles published
on our website and Upcoming Webinars you
may be interested in.
To join our email list, please visit:
https://www.financialpoise.com/subscribe/

Marketing First Steps: Planning, Budgeting & Hiring (Series: Digital Marketing Tips for the New (Or Old!) Business Owner 2020)

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (20)

Semelhante a Marketing First Steps: Planning, Budgeting & Hiring (Series: Digital Marketing Tips for the New (Or Old!) Business Owner 2020)

Semelhante a Marketing First Steps: Planning, Budgeting & Hiring (Series: Digital Marketing Tips for the New (Or Old!) Business Owner 2020) (20)

Mais de Financial Poise

Mais de Financial Poise (20)

Último

Último (20)

Marketing First Steps: Planning, Budgeting & Hiring (Series: Digital Marketing Tips for the New (Or Old!) Business Owner 2020)