How To Completely ELIMINATE All Marketing COSTS & Transform Your Ad Spend Into The Most PROFITABLE INVESTMENT Of Your Life

BEFORE WE START, LET’S PLAY A GAME. 

I’M GOING TO ASK YOU A QUESTION. WRITE THE ANSWER DOWN!

AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE, I WILL ASK AGAIN. LET’S SEE IF YOUR ANSWER CHANGES…

On a scale of 1 to 10, what degree of improvement could be made to your marketing efforts (10 being higher degree and 1 being lower degree). 

Now without further adieu, let’s get into it.

Why Marketing Is An Investment & Not A Cost

So many people in business perceive ad spend and other marketing related “costs” as an actual cost to the business. However, I would challenge that idea. In fact, I would challenge it strongly. 

Marketing is NOT a cost for a business. It is an investment. 

If you just read that sentence and thought, “Well, it’s a cost for us because…” then the bottom line is that whatever marketing strategy you’re using isn’t really working how it should be working. 

Let’s delve into this a little deeper, but before that, let’s hear the thoughts of a man who has already reached a significant level of wealth through the power of marketing. 

"Great marketing doesn't cost a business money...it makes the business money. In 2020, now more than ever we have the ability through various digital platforms, to deliver creative content to reach and grow our audience to market all types of products, services or experiences. I may add there are also tools available to monitor spend & reach which gives you the ability to tweak your campaigns at anytime"

Lu Ristov

Before, I mentioned that if you perceive marketing as a cost to your business, then whatever marketing strategy you’re using isn’t working the way it should.

Let’s chat about that. 

HOW SHOULD A MARKETING STRATEGY ACTUALLY IMPACT A BUSINESS?

The successful and complete implementation of an effective marketing strategy should result in a business reaching a conclusion along the lines of: 

• We can put $1 into FB Campaign #1 and get $3 back
• We can put $1 into FB Campaign #2 and get $1.50 back
• We can put $1 into Snapchat Campaign #1 and get $0 back, but raise the ROI on FB Campaign #1 by $2, resulting in $2 investment and $5 return. 
• We can put $100 into FB Campaign #3 and make $15 back immediately and over time recoup the cost with re-sales. 

These are the sort of conclusions that you should be reaching if your marketing strategy is working. If you’re not reaching these conclusions IT IS NOT WORKING, full stop. Of course, the numbers might be different, and the ROIs may even be negative in some cases, but that’s not the point. The point is that you’d have access to that information, and you’d know exactly what works and what doesn’t. You’d find out what your specific business needs to do to make money, and what your business needs to avoid to prevent loss of money. 

Going back to the original point, can payment for access to this knowledge still be considered a cost, or would it be considered an investment?

It would most definitely be considered an investment, because this knowledge is what allows us to make more money. 

Ever heard of defence housing investments in Australia? 

It’s probably one of the safest ways to invest your money (from my knowledge). You’re told exactly how much money you will get back and exactly how much you will need to invest. 

Who wouldn’t want to put their money into something like that, where you know exactly what your profits are before you even spend any money?

Well, marketing is EXACTLY the same thing. An effective marketing strategy helps you reach the conclusions that tell you EXACTLY how much you need to invest to earn x amount back. 

Knowing this, the question remains, why wouldn’t you invest in marketing? 

The Absolute Necessity To Ensure Your Marketing Is An Investment & Not A Cost --- SO MANY Businesses Miss Out On This!

In order to transform your ad spend into a profitable investment rather than an annoying cost, there is one thing that you ABSOLUTELY must do. 

Time and time again, I see established businesses who don’t have this set up correctly or aren’t doing this at all. I can’t believe that people make money without doing what I’m about to describe. It’s insane. Everyone must be extremely talented and lucky…

The thing I am speaking about is tracking. When this is done correctly, it’s almost impossible to not make money when you invest in marketing, hence ensuring it remains an investment and not a cost. Let’s delve into this. 

How Tracking Transforms Marketing Costs Into INVESTMENTS

Tracking is amazing. I’m in love with it. When I speak about tracking, what I mean is the ability to track users who perform specific actions with different value points associated with those actions. On top of this, it includes the tracking of users across a journey with your brand. 

In other words, if we know we’ve generated 100 sales this month, the questions that tracking would help me answer are: 

• Where did those 100 sales come from? {What marketing channel? What campaign? What piece of content (image/videos) was responsible? What copy was responsible?}
• What were the costs associated with those 100 sales and what was the returned revenue?
• What was the specific user journey of these 100 users who purchased?
• What was the specific user journey and drop off point of the users who did not purchase?
• Which content, copy, audience targeting, marketing channel and campaigns generated negative ROI or zero sales?

When you have answers to these questions, you’re able to make smarter decisions in your business. You begin to formulate facts around what will make you money and how much it will make you. This is when marketing becomes an investment. 

BUT! This is only possible if you first invest in the process, which allows you to gather enough data to develop these facts around what works and what doesn’t. Tracking is absolutely necessary in transforming a marketing cost into a marketing investment. 

I thought I’d provide a list of the things that you absolutely need to ensure your tracking is ON FIRE! I won’t be explaining in this article how to use these as there’s just too much detail involved. 

Basic

1. URL Parameters

Software

1. Hotjar
2. Google Tag Manager
3. Google Analytics
4. Google Optimize
5. Pixels {Facebook, Snapchat etc}
6. Google Ads Tag
7. Custom Events {FB, Google, Snapchat etc)

Conclusion

Remember, marketing is an investment, not a cost. HOWEVER, it can only become an investment when you have proper tracking in place. 

I asked you a question at the start of this article, remember? Let’s see if your answer changed at all. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, what degree of improvement could be made to your marketing efforts (10 being higher degree and 1 being lower degree).