The Five Things to Think About For Your 2022 Marketing Budget

It’s budgeting season. My favorite time of year! (Not.)

This time last year I was telling anyone who asked my opinion to think long term: Don’t cut marketing spending. Invest wisely. Yes, times are scary, but it is the firms that lean into their brand and digital presence that are going to emerge in a better place than those that do not.

Some firms listened. Others didn’t.

With 2022 fast approaching, it’s time to take stock of your firm’s marketing health. The longer you wait to make investments in critical marketing initiatives, the further behind your competition you will be. And take it from me: smart, forward-thinking firms are investing in marketing right now .

So, where should you focus your marketing dollars?

Marketing Automation

First and foremost, you need to invest in marketing automation tools. Marketing automation is the process of making repetitive tasks more efficient with tools like email marketing platforms, social schedulers, etc.

There are some things a human being should always be the one executing. But pushing “send” on a marketing email at a specific time, posting to your company’s twitter feed, or making a blog post go live? Nope.

“I’ve already got a social scheduler and email marketing platform,” you’re saying. Great! Now it’s time to kick it up a notch. What type of communications do your website visitors receive when they download a resource from your site?

Notice I said communications. A single “thanks for downloading” email isn’t enough. Setting up automations to nurture those contacts is simple and truly takes just a little bit of time.

Imagine: Visitor registers for a Trusts and Estates virtual CLE you are running. Once they register, they get an email thanking them for their registration, and they are entered into a workflow so that they also receive subsequent, tailored emails on trusts and estates and other related topics every three to four weeks. Enrollment in this workflow is triggered simply by signing up for the event. No further manual action required. Until they reach out for more information on your services that is.

Resources Required: Graphic designer

Marketing technologist

Project manager

Marketing automation tool

Time Required For: Researching the options available in the tools you have or new resources.

Creating automated emails from existing content and/or templates for new content as it is generated. (~30 mins/email)

Designing automated email templates. (~30 mins/email)

Setting up workflows. (Depends on the complexity of the workflow, but could be as quick as 5 minutes once you have all the right pieces in place.) Multimedia Marketing Call me captain obvious, but videos and podcasts are an increasingly valuable and important marketing method in your toolbox. And right now we’re in a great spot to be producing quick hit, high-value multimedia content. It doesn’t take much more than a ring light, a usb lavalier microphone, and a decent webcam (or your smartphone) to become a livestream or podcast producer. No one is expecting perfection.“Do I have to?” No, you don’t have to. But here are some reasons why you really should : > A one to three-minute video on social media gets your brand and your content in front of your audience in a method they are accustomed to consuming. Adding video to email can increase click-through rates by 200%+ A video is 50x more likely to appear on the first page of Google search results, especially when it’s a YouTube video. 94% of video marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service. 68% of consumers say the pandemic has impacted the amount of video content they’ve watched online, with the overwhelming majority (96%) saying this has increased. 84% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. “When asked how they’d most like to learn about a product or service, 69% [of respondents] said they’d prefer to watch a short video. This compares to 18% who’d rather read a text-based article, website, or post, 4% who’d like to view an infographic, 3% who’d rather download an ebook or manual, and 3% who’d rather attend a webinar,” says Wyzowl .What does take time is the planning and distribution of this content. Invest in resources — either internal or external — that can help you put together content that can be used multiple ways, multiple times. Resources Required: Lighting for each contributor like this ring light from Amazon. This is another good option for on-the-go. (I have both) A decent microphone for each contributor. This lavaliere […]

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