While the accountant in you may be screaming, smart executives know that despite marketing generally not being listed as an asset on the company’s balance sheet, its value warrants recognition.
You invest in countless assets to improve your business, from land and machinery to patents and copyrights. But, when it comes to shelling out some cash for marketing, the average business sees it an inconvenient expense that doesn’t drive direct results.
In reality, the way people perceive your brand and offerings is an integral part of how successfully your business will be able to grow. We need to take a full 360 on how we view marketing and recognize that if you’re willing to invest in it, it can be one of your most powerful assets.
Expenses should be kept to a minimum. Marketing shouldn’t.
When creating an annual budget, it makes sense that you actively try and keep your expenses down to a workable minimum. You don’t want to invest in a new piece of machinery unless it’s going to be able to create more or better products that you can sell to increase revenue.
Unfortunately, marketings not quite as tangible in terms of its relation to revenue increases, but time and again studies have proven that there’s a direct correlation between marketing spend and company growth. If you’re pressuring your team to keep marketing expenses down, you can’t expect to see results. Marketing is a long game and you need to be willing to invest time and money before you start seeing an increase in revenue.
Proving the value of marketing.
Proving the value of marketing has always been a challenge. But with the evolution of new technologies, marketers finally have a chance at proving the ROI of their campaigns.
Using a solution like ActiveConversion, allows you to keep track of all your campaigns in a single location while also giving you the ability to track a buyer’s journey from the first click to when they become a customer. This data can then be shared with executives to prove exactly what marketing is contributing to in terms of customer acquisition and revenue.
Of course, not everything related to marketing is entirely trackable. Take brand awareness as an example. Most people recognize its intrinsic value despite it being nearly impossible to put a number to its impact.
Many of the things you do in marketing results in the creation of items that your company can use over the next few years or more.
Your website is one of these items. A good website is often expensive to create, but once its done it will be accessed by potential customers every single day. Similarly, when you write content for a blog or article; that content will be seen by prospects whenever they’re researching your offering. You can extend the value of this content by promoting it through social media and email. Don’t forget, you can always share the same content multiple times; don’t just notify people when it’s first written and then leave it to be forgotten.
Your website and content will be a vital part of your business for years to come. They add value and drive revenue – so they should definitely be considered an asset.
It’s not about accounting.
The point of this blog isn’t to debate accounting rules, we all know those are set in stone. This blog is really to get you thinking about how you perceive marketing in your business. If you’re stuck thinking it’s an inconvenience that you throw money at with low expectations, then that’s exactly what it’s going to be.
You need to view marketing as a tool that can be used to propel your company towards success. Invest real time and effort into your marketing activities and you’ll be surprised how quickly you start to see results.
Not sure how much you should be spending on marketing? Check out our blog “How Much Should B2B Companies Budget For Marketing?”
