We are saving money on marketing this year by emphasizing link building and article submission activities instead of pay per click on Google Adwords and leads generated by ServiceMagic.
We are trying to buy more direct, in a nutshell.
Through the first month and half of the year sales are up and Adwords spending is down a 100 percent. We are starting later in the with Adwords, and gonna do more Microsoft Adcenter and much less on ServiceMagic this year. Overall spend will be down 20% to 30% depending on the economy
People in the office are not understanding the whole idea of marketing as a revenue generating idea. I don’t blame them, except when I do.
It is hard to get the idea, that marketing isn’t a complete cost center.
Affiliate marketing is obvious for us. Since our dominant channel is search engines and we are producing surplus leads, it only makes sense to start re-selling those opportunities.
I hope to offset 20 percent (or more ) of our budget this way, in 2011.
This time of the year, in the tree business, people are in a bad mood because they are broke. Th winter depletes many a tree trimmers bank account. And when they do work its cold. Or instead of trimming trees that are shoveling and plowing snow, not the favorite work activity for an arborist.
That shouldn’t cloud your judgment though. People are afraid of a good process, hard numbers and straight answers. I think they realize the power and want to diminish it if they don’t understand something.
Marketing power is built on systems and process.