“Audit” Isn’t a Dirty Word When You’re Making Sure Your Money Is Working for You

As the calendar year comes to a close, for many of us small businesses, this is also the end of the financial year. While the sheer mention of an “audit” is enough to keep anyone up at night, it’s one of my favorite terms to turn into a positive for potential and new clients by offering to audit their year-to-date marketing spending. I know, I know… this sounds painful, but I, personally, think it’s more painful to throw good money away without knowing that it’s working hard on behalf of your brand.

Maison Real Estate Marketing by Lisa Jeffries and Raleighwood Media Group (6)

As months, quarters, and years go by, it’s incredibly easy to hit “Boost” on those social media posts, fork over your credit card number to Google Ads for their streamlined setup, or to take advantage of the latest and greatest “limited time offer” that’s just too good to pass up. And sometimes, there are good deals to be had. However, if you don’t know where your money is working at its best for your business or organization, how can you make informed decisions the next time an opportunity presents itself? You have to be able to answer questions like the following to confidently invest in marketing and advertising:

  • What is my cost of a new customer or client acquisition by channel?
  • What is my lifetime value of a single new customer or client?
  • How much do I need to spend to bring in a new customer or client?

In order to audit where your marketing dollars are going and to analyze what they’re doing for you, a little bit of organization and strategy are required. Some of the biggest tools in our arsenal to make sense of these important metrics include Facebook Business Manager, Google Analytics, CallRail, and WordPress. Long gone are the days when you needed to rely on “How did you hear about us?” to inform your decisions. (By the way, did you know that we humans are pretty bad at this?) Instead, we can use a variety of budget-friendly tools to rely on data, rather than gut feelings, to inform our marketing efforts.

If you’ve already got one, or a combination, of these tools set up, then great! Let’s jump into your data and make sense of what’s working for you. As Raleighwood Media Group + Raleighwood Event Group’s principal and founder with nearly 20 years of professional digital marketing experience, this is an area where I get to truly showcase my superpowers for your benefit. I can’t wait to help you put the complex world of marketing data into layman’s terms.

If you don’t have a professional marketing and advertising program in place, now’s the time to give us a call at 919-229-9725 or send us an email at Hello@RaleighwoodMedia.com to talk shop. For those of you who missed your chance to understand your marketing investment ROI in 2021, please don’t let 2022 be a repeat.

Posted by Lisa Jeffries Nobling

A good old-fashioned Southern girl - at home in the modern world.