Ten questions to ask before you spend anything on marketing

Marketing spend has a way of creeping up before anyone's really interrogated whether it's working. A social media ad here, a directory listing there, a recommendation from a contact who said it worked for them. Before you know it you're spending a reasonable amount each month with no clear sense of what's coming back.

Before committing to anything, new or existing, these are the ten questions worth asking first.

1. Who exactly are you trying to reach?

Not "small businesses" or "people who need our service." Something more specific: what kind of business, at what stage, with what problem, in what location. The sharper you can make this, the easier every other decision becomes. Marketing without a clear audience is guesswork with a budget.

2. Do you know where that audience actually spends its time?

There's no point advertising on LinkedIn if your customers are on Instagram, or investing in local newspaper ads if they're searching Google. This sounds obvious, and yet a lot of marketing spend ends up in the wrong place because nobody asked the question properly. "Where does our ideal customer actually go to find businesses like ours?" is worth half an hour of anyone's time.

3. What does success look like, and how will you measure it?

If you can't answer this before you start, you won't be able to answer it afterwards either, which means you'll have no basis for deciding whether the money was well spent. Decide upfront what a good result looks like. More enquiries? A lower cost per lead? A specific number of new customers in a quarter? The metric matters less than having one.

4. Is your website ready to receive the traffic?

Driving people to a website that's slow to load, difficult to navigate, or missing a clear reason to get in touch is a reliable way to waste marketing budget. Before spending anything on bringing people in, check that what they arrive at is actually doing its job. A website that converts well multiplies the value of everything else you do.

5. Do you have the capacity to follow up properly?

If a campaign works and you get thirty enquiries in a week, what happens? If the honest answer is "not much, because we're already stretched," then timing matters as much as budget. Marketing that generates leads you can't respond to is almost worse than no marketing at all, because it creates the impression that you're not interested.

6. Have you looked at what's already working?

Most businesses have at least one channel or source that delivers a disproportionate share of their enquiries. Before adding something new, it's worth working out what's already performing and whether there's more to be had from it. Doubling down on what works is often a better use of budget than diversifying into something unproven.

7. Are you comparing like with like?

When someone tells you that Facebook ads didn't work, or that SEO is a waste of money, it usually means it didn't work for them, in that context, at that point in time, probably without enough commitment or the right expertise behind it. Marketing tactics aren't universally good or bad. What matters is whether they suit your business, your audience, and your budget. Take other people's experiences as data, not verdicts.

8. What's your timescale?

Some marketing delivers results quickly. Some takes months to build. If you need enquiries next week, a content strategy is not the answer. If you're thinking twelve months ahead, pay-per-click might not be the most efficient use of budget over that period. Matching the tactic to the timescale saves a lot of frustration and a fair amount of money.

9. Who's actually going to run it?

Marketing that nobody has time to do properly tends not to work. Before committing to something that requires ongoing management, it's worth being honest about where the time is coming from. In-house, outsourced, or a mix? That's not a secondary question. It's one of the first.

10. How long will you give it?

Marketing rarely delivers instant results, and pulling the plug after three weeks because nothing dramatic has happened is one of the most common reasons it fails. Decide in advance how long you'll run something before you evaluate it properly. Then stick to that, resist the urge to tinker constantly, and judge it on the evidence when the time comes.

None of this is meant to put you off spending. Marketing that's well targeted and properly managed can deliver a real return. But the businesses that get the best results from it tend to be the ones that ask the awkward questions before they start, not afterwards.

If you'd like help thinking through where your marketing budget would work hardest, get in touch.