I wont name the company in question for obvious reasons, no-one is born with the knowledge to get everything right first time (me included) and were confident they will be changing their ways for the future growth of the business with a small helping hand from yours truly! 🙂
Lets call the company Casea for the sake of this post – ‘Casea’ is in the consultancy sector dealing with business clients throughout the UK, with an annual marketing budget of £5,000 which included all advertising, networking fees, promotional items and related marketing materials like business printed stationary.
Casea’s annual spend was broken down as: majority print advertising, networking fees and printed stationary including business cards and leaflets.
As a small consultancy business, they didnt see the need for a website at this time, as the majority of incoming work was through networking.
After being advised by a fellow business friend to take up social networking for the business they threw everything into it, spending at least three full hours per day at his desk making ‘progress’ with fellow social networkers.
Soon after the initial setup of the social media accounts, the company received queries as to why they were unable to locate a company website for more information of the services offered, so after much consideration the company spent over £2,000 on a template website built by a new online contact from America.
After a few months spending hours at the desk ‘developing’ social relations all over the world he noticed that nothing was happening from his efforts and to make matters worse he had not received a single enquiry or follow up from his website!
Can you see what went wrong?
All marketing activities were sporodic and ill planned, there was no monitoring and impact processes in place, within six months the annual marketing budget spend had been tripled just through word of mouth suggestions.
As a result of this:
- The company website didnt rank in any of the UK keyword searches as it was fully maintained in America and not in the UK
- No firm enquiries came in through social networking activities for the business as there was no clear strategy in place
- When received incoming enquires, Casea directed them immediatley to the fresh website but never heard from them again
All marketing efforts had been developed seperatley and there was no brand consistancy throughour the collateral which meant that the companies marketing message was all over the place and difficult to convey to potential customers, leaving them confused and un motivated, although the actual service is great!
Increased Expenses + No ROI for any of the marketing activities…
What this does is make marketing and any form of advert branding for the company a complete waste of time, energy and money!
If you feel you would benefit from some honest, friendly advise and supportive expert advice with regards to developing and marketing your business please give us a call on 01246 287414 or email the office
