Marketing programs end up like leaky boats very easily. Each activity seems worthy at the time, but too many of them fail to produce a positive return – ending up as holes in the bottom of your business’s boat. Get too many of those holes, and the water inside the boat starts rising. The next sections share some of the common ways marketers lose money (so you can try to avoid them), plus two effective strategies for using your cash wisely.
Don’t ignore the details.

Good marketing plans are built from details such as customer-by-customer, item-by-item, or territory-by-territory sales projections. Generalizing about an entire market is hard and dangerous. Your sales and cost projections are easier to get right if you break them down into their smallest natural units (such as individual territory sales or customer orders), do estimates for each of these small units, and then add up those estimates to get your totals.

Don’t imitate the competitors.

You may be tempted to just do what your bigger competitors are doing, but don’t fall into that trap. You need to have some fresh ideas that make your brand and plan unique. Remember: Imitation isn’t a winning strategy in the long run.

Do find your own formulas for success.

Start by building on whatever successes you’ve had in the past. For instance, if you ran an ad this year that got a good response, double or triple the number of ads of this kind in next year’s plan.

Don’t feel confined by last period’s budget and plan.

When putting together your marketing plan, don’t allow past results to trap you in what you want to do. Repeat or improve the best-performing elements of the past plans and cut back on any elements that didn’t produce high returns. Every plan includes some activities and spending that aren’t necessary and can be cut out (or reworked) when you do it all over again next year.

Be ruthless with any underperforming elements of last year’s plan! (If you’re starting a new business, at least this is one problem you don’t have to worry about. Yet.) Also, monitor your plan over the business cycle and adjust it as you go so you can catch problems early and avoid wasting too much time and money on underperforming activities.

Don’t engage in unnecessary spending.

Always think through any spending and run the numbers before signing a contract or writing a check. Many of the people you deal with to execute your marketing activities are salespeople themselves. Their goal is to get you to buy their ad space, use their design or printing services, or spend money on fancy.

Web sites. They want your marketing money — and may care less whether you get a good return on it or not. So keep them on a tight financial rein.

One of the biggest areas of waste is advertising agencies. Sure, sometimes you need a good agency, like when you want to design and run a large ad campaign. But if you’re placing fewer than a thousand ads, you probably can’t afford the typical agency with its big upfront fees for consultation and design.

A local, independent graphic designer who has created successful ads in your industry before is a more affordable alternative. In terms of placing the ads, you may need to be the one who negotiates good rates, so be prepared to roll up your sleeves and do some of the work yourself.