The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many businesses to reconsider their 2021 budget and growth strategies. In doing so, it’s easy to look at your marketing campaign expenses and wonder if it’s worth investing in.
Healthcare marketing campaigns, digital platforms, and technology costs often quickly add up and cause serious sticker shock. How can you guarantee a return on investment (ROI) and growth? What are the consequences of cutting marketing out?
Once you take a closer look at those numbers, it’s clear to see why marketing is one of the smartest investments medical suppliers can make. Without consistent and effective marketing, you’re unable to reach your distributors and end-users to increase sales. However, running healthcare marketing campaigns for the sake of doing it isn’t effective. The key is finding a balance between driving results and allocating your budget.
Many marketers plan to increase their budgets by 7.6% on average in 2021. What would happen if you stopped all healthcare marketing campaigns right now? Let’s dive into what it would cost you long-term and quick tips on how to cut expenses without hurting your business growth.
The Cost of Stopping Your Healthcare Marketing Campaigns
If your marketing campaigns are running up your budget without impressive results, you may consider throwing in the towel altogether. However, healthcare marketing campaigns encompass many aspects of business growth including brand awareness, lead generation, customer insights, and more.
Without marketing, your company would have to rely solely on the merit of your products and services, along with word-of-mouth referrals from past customers. Ultimately, this would lead to a decrease in sales, engagement, and overall brand awareness — costing your business thousands and thousands of dollars.
Where Your Healthcare Campaign Went Wrong
Depending on your products and services, healthcare suppliers are spending anywhere from thousands to millions of dollars on marketing expenses. With endless marketing channels and technology to test, it’s easy for many businesses to quickly overload themselves. If your marketing campaigns are underperforming, ask yourself the following questions before cutting your budget:
- Are you targeting the right audience?
- Have you built out buyer personas from research?
- Did you develop realistic success metrics?
- Is your messaging not resonating with your audience?
- Do you understand the customer journey?
3 Ways to Reduce Healthcare Marketing Campaign Expenses Without Hurting Your Business
While marketing is paramount to your overall business growth, you can still cut down your budget without sacrificing the quality of your results. Here are a few steps you can take to optimize your healthcare marketing campaigns and expenses:
1.Conduct a Full Marketing Audit
You need to conduct a full marketing audit to determine how much you’re spending on marketing activities, active marketing channels, and measurable results. You’ll need to quantify how much you’re spending on each channel and include any software, fees, materials, etc.
After you’re finished, you’ll most likely be surprised which areas you’re overspending and where gaps exist. You can either decide to limit the number of active channels you’re investing in or reduce your spend on underperforming campaigns.
2.Improve Audience Targeting
The key to a successful marketing campaign is targeting the right customer, at the right time, on their preferred platform. However, 60% of marketers agree that their customer acquisition cost (CAC) has increased in the past three years. Focusing your budget on prospects who aren’t in your ideal market jams up your lead pipeline and is an ineffective use of your budget.
Instead, build comprehensive buyer personas through quantitative and qualitative research so you can better understand your customer’s needs and pain points. Use these profiles to arm your marketing strategy and better use your budget for the right audience.
3.Use Marketing Automation Tools
While the idea of investing in new technology may seem daunting, it can help you cut back on resources and not spread yourself too thin. Marketing automation will help free up your time and ensure your team can focus on different tasks.
Common marketing automation tools include:
- Chatbots
- Email autoresponder and journeys
- Customer relationship managers
Build Comprehensive Healthcare Marketing Campaigns that Drive Results
Budget cuts are never easy. However, completely stopping your healthcare marketing campaigns can have serious consequences for your overall business growth. Without marketing, you’ll be unable to attract and engage with your customers on a larger scale. If you’re concerned about your budget, consider analyzing your expenses, budget, and data to make smarter campaign decisions that propel your medical supply company forward.
Ready to develop marketing campaigns that amplify your growth? Contact Share Moving Media for more information.