The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

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How Much Should Your Company Spend on Marketing?

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times – marketing matters. Effective marketing is the peanut butter to your jelly, the donut to your coffee, and the Ted Lasso to your pandemic.  It can make a business or break it.

To see the kind of growth that leaps off planning sheets and converts into real customers, you will need to rely on experts that can get your brand out in the world.

But, how much is too much to spend on your marketing game, and how should said money be spent?

That is the question of the century!

So, let’s start at the basics.

Evaluate Your Current Expenses

Before you start thinking about how you want to allocate your funds and create a marketing budget, it’s helpful to know how much you’re spending overall.

The size of your marketing budget will solely depend on your goals and how much money you have to spend.

While many companies can spend anywhere from 7-15% of their overall revenue on marketing, does that number work for you, or should you aim higher?

If you’re a new start-up looking for quick growth and new leads, 7-15% might be a bit low of a number. For this reason, you might decide to spend around 20% on your marketing efforts.

In the end, it all depends on your needs, and your goals.

Whatever you decide, remember to not spend money that you can’t afford to lose.

Deciding Your Marketing Budget

Now, that you’ve decided how much you can spend on your marketing, you have to determine how you should allocate the funds you have.

That is why we have three steps that can help you in this thing called marketing. 

Set marketing goals

“Don’t move until you see it.” That principle can honestly apply to any situation and especially in situations concerning your business.

You can’t know what to give out until you know how much you have to give and what your limits are. This is why it is crucial that you set up a marketing budget to house all of your goals (and realistic ways to get there).

Consider making SMART goals

Specific: Include details in your goals and avoid vagueness.

Measurable: Ensure you can measure your progress toward your goals.

Attainable: Your goals can be ambitious, but they should also be realistically achievable.

Relevant: Your marketing goals should be relevant to your overall business objectives.

Time-bound: Set a time limit for achieving your goals to help keep you on track.

Here is an example: “work to increase revenue by 50% by the middle of the year” or “acquire 10 new leads by the end of the quarter.”

Create a Plan for the Year

Plan ahead, like way ahead. Try sitting down and planning the vision for your business for the full year and what you can do to make that happen. Don’t forget to keep your marketing goals at the forefront as you’re planning. This can give you a great forecast to keep you on track and save you time so you don’t have to go month to month or by quarter.

Some marketing avenues to consider:

  • Content Marketing
  • Email Marketing
  • Social Media marketing

Hire professionals

How are you planning on executing your plans? Will your internal marketing team do the work, will you hire a marketing agency, or will you work with freelancers? You might use a combination of these methods.

When choosing marketing channels, a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is the 70-20-10 rule. This guideline says that:

  • 70% of your budget should go towards strategies you know work well
  • 20% should go to new strategies that help your business grow
  • 10% of your budget should go towards emerging or experimental strategies to keep you ahead of the competition

To save money, you could write your own blog posts and manage your own social media.

If, later in the year, you notice competitors overtaking you in search engine results, you might shift some of your PPC budgets to content marketing. All of this might be overwhelming at first, but you got this.

So, how about it? Are you ready to get your marketing strategy in gear? Take a targeted approach, and let us help you see growth! We’re here for you.

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Building Your Marketing Budget: Where to Best Allocate Your Funds

Bread and butter…That is what marketing is to your business. Now, before you say anything, just think about how much marketing has already helped your business and given you awareness in otherwise closed places.

It might be bold, but hey, we’re those kind of people, so we’ll just come out and say it. Your business is only as good as its marketing strategy.

It can be hard to determine what the best fit is for your budget and your needs. In fact, it is part of the entrepreneurial challenge to figure out how to spend limited funds.

Where do you start, and how can you get the most out of your marketing while still adhering to a budget?

A good place to start is by thinking about your customers, audience, and potential audience. How do you want to reach them? What would be the best way to reach them? What medium would they respond to most?

This will help you navigate the allocation process and aim for profitable avenues of marketing. While the U.S. Small Business Administration recommends spending about 7 to 8 percent of your gross revenue, it won’t do you any good without knowledge on where to spend it.

Our advice is to try and narrow down things that you might want your marketing to include first before spending anything.

Look at the competition and do your research on marketing tools that have a proven rate of success.

Common marketing methods like:

Blogs: One of the best ways to improve drive traffic and boost your SEO ranking, blogs can also serve as an information warehouse, where readers can see that you really do have a great wealth of knowledge to share. If you had to choose a strong marketing tool for your business, blogging should be the first place you start.

Email Marketing: Emails are not going anywhere anytime soon.  With a proven track record of being solid forms of marketing that yield real growth, email is one of (if not the most) the highest drivers of ROI in marketing today. (Read more about that here: https://www.thefoundgen.com/is-email-marketing-really-as-good-as-we-keep-preaching/ )

Social Media: What can we say? Social media is – all around us (please read this in Hugh Grant voiceover tone). You can reach people you never thought possible just by being active, consistent, and engaging. Remember those three, because that is the key to social media working for you.

Videos: Video is an another way to engage your clients and potential clients. Some people won’t want to read a blog (we don’t trust those people), but will respond better to video. It can be a strong marketing tool across platforms and an easy way to step up your content and reach those who prefer a few seconds of live action before they swipe to some cats doing some cat thing.  

All of these can serve the purpose of marketing your business and reaching your target audience – where they are.

However, now you have to decide which ones to put your money toward. That is where the second piece of the puzzle comes in: determining what the right fit is for you.

This can quickly turn into a trial-and-error situation without the help of seasoned marketing professionals. You know your business (probably backward and forwards). Marketing firms know how to help bring the best out of your business and increase revenue at the same time.

It would be a shame to spend money and not see any returns. Wouldn’t it? Let’s chat about what tools your business would most benefit from and how you can see real growth.

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How to Grow Your Email Marketing List Organically

Emails, e-blasts, newsletters, oh my!

The options of communication seem to be plentiful these days. While the different forms of email marketing have been placed to the side by some, it cannot be overlooked that email is and forever will be a very smart marketing strategy. It may not be the easiest thing you do in your life, but it is worth it. We all know that a grand multitude of clients don’t just magically wander into our office every day, so that means you still have to put in the work to reach across the digital space until they become a physical reality. 

Are there other options that you can try to help you grow your email list (i.e., borrowing lists)? Sure, some other things out there are touted as being easier and faster. But they are not best for pure organic growth.

Here are few tips we’ve picked up along the way that have proven to do the trick.

1) Offer Incentives to Anyone Willing to Subscribe

Who doesn’t like incentives? No, really, that was a real question.

Getting something of value for the simple act of subscribing to emails seems like a win-win for most people, and it’s a great way to seize the moment with potential subscribers.

Here are some incentive ideas to get you started:

  • An eBook
  • A PDF journal/workbook/report
  • A discount on products or services

2) Don’t Forget the Sign-Up Button

Here’s something that you might not have realized- everyone who sees your website might not know that you have amazing emails. So, why not tell them. Grab potential subscribers’ attention and lead them to sign up to your email for more great information. How can you do this? Strategically place a sign-up button on your website in multiple places.

You don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to grab more subscribers. Be strategic.

3) Engage people with personalized offers

Let’s say that you have an amazing idea, and you know it will hook potential clients. You’ve done the work to figure out who your intended audience is and that the idea would be enticing to them. What should you do next? Turn this idea into a personalized offer. 

Do personalized offers work? Well, according to a 2018 survey, nearly 95% of people polled revealed that they would be more likely to purchase something (or in your case, subscribe to your email) if they felt they would get something beneficial for their lives.

4) Social Media + Promotions

People often don’t think of their social media accounts as something that can drive traffic and help their email marketing.

However, a promotion or contest is a quick way to get people to engage and sign up for your email. All you have to do is advertise the contest through your social channels and put the link in your bio. It goes back to the idea that people really do like things in exchange for their actions. So, highlight something free, and watch people sign up.

5) Ask those on your list to help you spread the word

This last tip might seem obvious, but many people miss it. Ask those that are on your list to help spread the word

If you send out great content, slowly but surely, your followers will begin to get the word out, and your list will begin to grow.

Give us a ring for more tips on how to grow your emails and how you can see growth in your business.

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Sales v. Advertising v. Marketing: What’s The Difference?

Here’s the thing, sales and advertising are not the same things. While they both share the same parent (which is marketing, by the way) and share a similar goal for business growth, they are fundamentally different.

We can tell that a little crash course is needed here, so we’ll begin. Many smaller companies see advertising as a way to support the selling portion of the business. The advertising can help inform potential customers about the company’s products and varied services. Sales, however, seeks to close the deal with those customers and get them to commit.  Starting to see the difference?

Here are few more ways that these two differ.

The One Vs. The Many

Did you know that sales are more personal than advertising? From phone conversations to in-person, there is no way around customer interaction. Those in sales have direct access to customers, allowing for a more personalized experience and allowing them to interact with the product. Advertising, on the other hand, is non-personal in nature. It involves one-way communication and focuses on reaching many people at the same time. There are also many mediums advertising can use, including billboards, television, the Internet, radio, etc.

Push vs. Pull

Why do companies use sales and marketing? To put it simply, you need both to succeed in your business. However, the function is where the difference lies. Let’s frame it with an example, shall we? Sales reps go out and push the company’s product. Wholesalers then run with the baton and push the product on retailers, and retailers on the consumers. Advertising, however, pulls products through different distribution channels to deliver a brand’s unique message to consumers. In turn, the consumers desire the product and apply pressure for it. 

Priorities, Priorities, Priorities.

Sales introduce the key benefits and features of any product during events and presentations. They may even compare their product and its features to competitors with similar products. What is the objective? It always remains the same: close the sale. Advertising has a different goal. It is designed to follow the AIDA principle (attention, interest, desire, and action). Advertisers may use catchy headlines or noises to attract attention from potential clients. They also dabble in the art of writing and produce compelling copy to keep the consumer’s interest. Advertisers may then have the consumer picture herself using the product to create desire.

Frequency

Last but not least is frequency. Sales is usually more infrequent than advertising and cannot hold the sustainable message like a good advertisement. While sales reps may see a customer one or two times (depending on the need for the product), an advertisement has a lasting reach and impact.

And with that, the game of sales vs. advertisement is done. If you have further questions on how to increase either in your business, shoot us an email and see how we can help.

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How to Build a Content Strategy for Commercial Real Estate

Content marketing is not for the faint of heart. Content marketing for commercial real estate is even harder. Like the industry itself, it can be a high-level, high-stakes game that is sometimes hard to predict. While people outside of the industry might think of it as the same as residential real estate, those within the industry know that it is an entirely different beast.

The good news is that we’re here to iron out the kinks in your marketing strategy and level the playing field so that you can start seeing some dividends.

Produce Professional-Quality Content

Your content is a direct reflection of you and your brand. It is often the first bit of substance that a client receives from you, and believe us, they take it all in. The good, bad, and the ugly, they will notice it all. So, don’t get sloppy. Everything you put out should be free of grammar errors (especially massive, content-skewing ones), and the storytelling should be beyond the ordinary. If you find that this is just not your strong suit, hire professionals that can do the work for you. Not only will you gain some of your much-needed time back, but polished work will help your brand appear more professional.

Optimize for Local Traffic

Creating exceptional content is and forever will always be the goal (as you just read); however, it has to connect to your local base. If it doesn’t, you’ll be marketing to the wrong crowds, wasting time, and not seeing any level of growth.

Learn about the cities and neighborhoods you want to market to and write to those areas. They will be the ones that will support your business and show the most interest. Also, consider asking your content writers or sourced marketing team to also do some research at the local level and write to region-specific topics.

Make It Bite-Size

Want to know the truth about clients in the commercial real estate space? Ok, we’ll put it in a few words for you. They like it bite-sized. Everything information-wise has to be bite-sized for them to even care. Your typical client is most likely very busy already reading through countless reports, so make your content digestible and an enjoyable read (as much as possible). You can achieve this by including things like:

  • Subheadings
  • Bold text
  • Bullet points
  • Infographics

See how bite-sized information really can be loaded but informational?! Let us know how we can help you hit your marketing dream to make the sales that matter.

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3 Core Things All Architecture Firms Should Be Doing This Year for Marketing

Seeing beyond what’s there is your job. Testing the limits of what’s possible is in your blood. Strategy is your rulebook, you my friend, are an architect.

That’s why it would only make sense that you would want to take the reins and build a stronger marketing foundation for your architecture firm. Whether the goal is more clients or just better clients, there are strategies to get you to the top of your marketing game.

You’ve just been enrolled in architecture marketing 101, and you’re about to pass the class if you read on as we drop some knowledge.

Lesson 1: Know What’s Going on in Your Marketing

Question: How would you know if any of your marketing strategies thus far have worked or even given you the slightest inch towards seeing the kind of results you desire without the data?

Where is your traffic coming from?

What is the most effective way to connect with your clientele?

Why does it seem like people aren’t reaching out?

All of these questions are important and contribute to real organic growth.

Can you draw your latest masterpiece in the dark? Probably not (and if so, you’re someone that is beyond us mortal humans). Nothing you do should be left in the dark, especially when it comes to marketing. We’re not saying that you need to strictly measure KPI’s and hire a huge marketing company that charges more than you make in a year to track numbers, but we are saying that a healthy interest in how your firm is doing and how things are performing is okay.

Think tactics with proven statistical data behind it. Start with things that have been proven to work time-and-time again and pay attention to any changes in growth that you see.

Lesson 2: Who is Your Audience?

For your marketing strategy to work, you need a specific POA when it comes to who you’re trying to target. Without that, you could be throwing darts out into the atmosphere with no real target.

Seth Godin summarizes this idea well:

“When you seek to engage with everyone, you rarely delight anyone. And if you’re not the irreplaceable, essential, one-of-a-kind changemaker, you never get a chance to engage with the market.

“The solution is simple but counterintuitive: Stake out the smallest market you can imagine. The smallest market that can sustain you, the smallest market you can adequately serve. This goes against everything you learned in capitalism school, but in fact, it’s the simplest way to matter. “

This, in a nutshell, is the foundation of modern-day marketing. You aren’t seeking to speak to everyone, just the select few that you determine are your true audience.

Sit down and actually think about who you’re trying to reach, why you want to reach them, what they might be looking for, and where they live in relation to your services. Just starting here can make a world of difference as your charting out your marketing strategy.

Lesson 3: Establish an Email List

Why do people see hiring an architect as a luxury, you might ask? Because it isn’t something that the average person seeks out every day. In fact, the select few people who need an architect rarely ever need one more than once in their entire lifetime. So, what does that mean for you? The people who are looking are more than vital for your business; they are essential for you making your mark.

The ideal client doesn’t just haphazardly pick an architect right away. They often lurk in the shadows, learning all they can learn about your work and capabilities before committing. Leaving the “close the deal” mentality to realtors will be your best friend because you already know that it works a bit differently in your work line. It takes patience and an abundance of information for a potential client to become an onboard client. 

It is much more pertinent to build a relationship with your client than you think. And a way to do this is through email marketing. Email marketing can keep potential clients in the loop with the latest information, the latest trends, your most recent work, and anything else you choose to share with them. This may seem tedious at first, but the dividends have been proven.  Nothing beats email for reaching your core.

We’ve got the skills, experience, and expertise to help bring your business to the next level. Contact us today to amplify your efforts and let the people come to you!