In most industries, marketers are remaining budget conscience while trying to do significantly more outreach with significantly fewer resources. Communicating about new business initiatives, products, and services—both in-store and online—results in marketers being more strategic with their budgets than ever before, seeking tactics and strategies that reach more consumers more effectively with less expense.
Here are three cost-effective marketing strategies for maximizing impact.
1. Embrace Digital
The first key to an effective marketing campaign is meeting your customers and potential customers where they are. And now, more than ever, that means finding them online through digital marketing strategies. Research found that 97% of consumers go online to find and research local businesses.
Whether your primary focus is brand awareness, lead generation, or existing customer growth (or, ideally, all three), digital channels provide marketers with unprecedented ability to personalize, target, and track campaigns — and at the same time, unprecedented budget control. After all, a digital marketing budget is entirely dictated by the marketer’s needs, offering complete control over where and how money is spent.
From personalized ads and emails to retargeting strategies, for starters, using digital platforms to automate lead nurturing activities can lead to 50 percent more sales at a third of the cost of using traditional methods alone.
2. Minimize Waste in Print Marketing
For cost-conscious and environmentally conscious businesses, print marketing — with all the physical materials it entails — tends to get a bad rap. But savvy marketers know that, even though digital outreach is critical to growth, print and direct mail marketing are still integral parts of the right marketing mix. In fact, according to research from Swrve, an integrated multichannel marketing program can deliver revenue uplift of 15 to 35 percent. And the good news is that responsible sourcing and production choices can minimize the cost (and environmental impact) of your print marketing initiatives while maximizing customer impact.
Since a significant source of materials waste in print marketing comes from overprinting materials, on-demand printing can be a game changer for cost-conscious organizations. With quick turnarounds and no quantity minimums, the right just-in-time printing partner can enable organizations to print exactly what they need, when they need it. That means no longer printing more than you need just to meet a minimum or paying for extra copies “just in case.” It also means saving on storage space for high volumes of inventory.
Transparent inventory tracking is another key to cutting costs. Lack of clear insights into what you have, what you need, what’s working and what’s not can lead to waste as you continue printing assets that aren’t being used or that you already have excess of. But with access to real-time inventory levels, production status, and ordering patterns, marketers can make more informed inventory management decisions, reducing waste and minimizing overspend.
3. Streamline Operations
Finally, trimming inefficiencies out of the marketing supply chain and operations can have a significant impact on cost. With print, this means efficient shipping practices. Depending on where your assets are going, it may not make sense to ship them all from headquarters, or even from the same offsite production facility.
When your audience is in New England, shipping materials from your printer in California may not be the most efficient or cost-effective option. Finding a print marketing partner with fulfillment centers located across the country can help ensure consistent quality and service along with a cost-effective distribution journey.
For digital and print marketing in companies where multiple people or teams are responsible for campaigns — whether they work across the building from one another or across the country — a key part of streamlining is ensuring everyone has access to the latest, corporate-approved messaging and assets in one centralized hub. This way, local marketers aren’t spending their limited time and resources creating their own content, and the national team can rest assured they won’t have to spend time or money fixing campaigns that don’t meet brand standards. Additionally, this centralized hub empowers local marketers to print, order, and pay for their own assets while giving national teams the visibility they need to keep the budget in check.
OneTouchPoint’s Commitment to High-Impact, Cost-Effective Marketing
OneTouchPoint brings nationwide technology, services, and commercial printing power to support local and national marketers with an unmatched range of brand communication capabilities. From wide-reach digital and local marketing campaign execution to one-to-one fulfillment, we’re dedicated to empowering marketers to create integrated, multichannel marketing campaigns that maximize impact while minimizing wasted time, effort and, cost.
To learn more about how OneTouchPoint can help your marketing team do more with less, we invite you to contact us today or request a quote on your next project. Our experts will provide insight and ideas to deliver phenomenal results at a great price.