When it comes to being productive in business, we first look at time don't we? 

With the greater opportunities presented by multi-channel marketing come some challenges. Most small business owners are not marketing professionals and many tell us that the flood of new marketing tools, along with the need to be everywhere their customers are, from search engines, to mobile devices, to friends’ newsfeeds, can really be overwhelming.—Gail Goodman (CEO Constant Contact)

Promoting Through Paid Search

Paid search software firm WordStream came out with a study this August that revealed small businesses waste on average 25% of their PPC budget (Pay-Per-Click) as a result of not making time to manage their paid search campaigns. Further, founder Larry Kim said that small businesses "lack context" with search, which makes them unaware of how much better they could be doing in their paid search efforts. This stands to reason why small businesses hire out-of-house or create an in-house position for someone to actively manage search optimization and search marketing efforts. 

Promoting On Social Media

The interesting history of social media is that it was seen as a free (a.k.a. cost effective) way to reach prospective customers and thereby reduce how much businesses needed to spend on marketing. The latest Social Media Marketing Industry Report found that 51% of small business owners still believe social media reduces overall marketing expenses. The scary thing is that 22% of small businesses don't hire an agency or individual to manage their social media profiles or campaigns. There is a reluctance to invest in social media marketing, so instead, employees are asked to pitch in and update the company social profiles by making announcement posts, uploading photos, and even managing social ads. We don't agree with this strategy, and there are probably some employees of these companies who don't like this strategy either. Here's why: It's an inefficient and unproductive spending of employee and company time.   

Of course authenticity is an important element of a great image on social media, but having your employees multi-task by doing another job next to their primary role at your company is not going to breed quality. Your employees could educate themselves with trial and error, but is that a productive use of their time? How many potential leads could your company have earned if you had hired someone or a team to be specifically devoted to managing your social media? 

Automating Won't Save Time

The most startling development is called programmatics. This automated system purports that it will save businesses time and money, but above all will maximize marketing efforts. Essentially the program will take the place of several people, buying ads in real-time and readjusting based on the performance of those ads. The problem with programmatics and automation is, as Kevin Krogue puts it well "marketing automation companies ‘score’ leads with powerful algorithms, but add hours to the process of getting it to the right place; losing far more value than they gain." Korgue cites a statistic from a study that was published in the Harvard Business Review, that companies waste 71% of internet leads because they don't respond quickly, essentially missing that human element of customer service.    

Be Open to Change to Get the Most Value Out of Your Marketing Efforts

Losing time robs us of opportunities we could've taken, loses us energy we could've saved, and devalues the money we put into an investment or the money we could have earned had we managed time better. We can't always prevent or avoid losing time because unforeseeable events and circumstances happen, that's the nature of life. However, we can manage how we waste time. 

No matter if it's web development, paid search, or social media marketing, you want to see a marketing team or individual giving you reports on performance metrics of the various campaigns they are running for you. If there hasn't been much improvement or increase in KPIs (key performance indicators) in the last few months, ask them "what are the things that are obstructing that, and what can we do to change that?" Both their responses and yours are going to greatly influence the amount of time that will go wasted in unproductive marketing and promotional efforts going forward.

It is frustrating to work for a business that doesn't take your suggestions, but it is equally frustrating for a business owner to have a marketing team or individual that is unproductive and inefficient.

USING YOUR MARKETING BUDGET PRODUCTIVELY IS WHAT YOU NEED TO FEEL COMFORTABLE INVESTING IN MARKETING AND PROMOTING YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE.

It's bad for business to waste time on strategies that don't work and not try new ones. A marketing agency is more cost-effective, affordable and will save you in the long run than wasting time figuring out everything thing there is to marketing. We at Geoffresh Inc. value our client's time and work with them to develop timetables, set reachable goals, and meet expectations. Our goal is to exceed expectations of course, but it takes time to reap the rewards of your efforts if you're doing things the correct way. What you get with a professional in the digital marketing field is specialization. Hiring someone to manage your business' marketing efforts will save you time reaching your goals. That extra time is then spent by the marketing team or individual to monitor and recalibrate your campaigns so that you the client gets the most value. In the end you get an always fresh and relevant marketing efforts. 

So if you are interested in making your business more productive with its marketing efforts, contact us at Geoffresh Inc. and we'd love to talk with you about saving some time.