As 2024 (yup) bears down on us, we look back at the wild ride that was 2023. Interest rates at a 20-year high point, inflation still weighing on our monthly budgets, and overall, we hear mixed things from our small business clients in terms of how their 2023 is shaking out.
While so much of this feels outside our control, as a business owner you can take comfort in the levers you can pull, within your own company, to bet on yourself, your team and your ability to navigate any condition. A strong marketing plan and budgeting for advertising in the new year must play a central role if your plans are for growth.
Where to invest, how much and on which platform are important considerations. While we all recognize that the real drivers of business via the various online channels require that you allocate an ad budget, trying to manage that yourself without proper know-how can be a costly venture.
With so many opportunities within a single platform, like Google for example, you need to make sure you are getting the advice you need to make the right call and to put your dollars to work for maximum success. Pay per click or pay per call ads, map ads, search ads, display ads, Local Services Ads, are just some of the options on Google. Over on Facebook/Instagram you can create sponsored content, run traffic ads, or lead generation ads to name a few.
Begin with the end in mind. Sit down and determine what success would look like for your business when you are sitting down in December 2024. Would it mean that you added 30 extra clients? 100 extra service orders? Whatever this looks like for your business, only you know. Understanding it can arm you with the right information to have an informative discussion on marketing and ad planning for the new year.
Here at OMG, we have these conversations every day and can take your goals for growth and prescribe the right product(s) along with an estimate for an ad budget. We’ll work together to show you how the math can work for you, honing in on what we call your CAC, or Cost to Acquire a Customer. Once you know what it takes to bring in a brand-new customer using various advertising options, you can assess your budget and make decisions based on sound estimates and proven solutions.
We are very excited and are building and testing new products and improving on processes to enhance our current product stack. With new platforms making a big impact on millions of U.S. users, (think TikTok, NextDoor, new ads from Microsoft, and others) the product team at OMG is busy in the test kitchen, tinkering and testing, ultimately determining whether there has been enough progress on some of these newer platforms to consistently generate new customers for you at a reasonable cost. Once we do, you can bet that we’ll be letting you know and bringing new opportunity to your door.
Amidst all the turmoil and noise that was 2023 (and with 2024 bound to include more of the same) you can rest assured that OMG will be here, working for you in our 34th year, on a quest for greatness and delighting in helping our clients to succeed. I hope that you make some time to have a meaningful discussion about your plans for growing your business in the New Year, and I hope you’ll have that call with us.
To a successful 2024!
Jesse Lubar