How Streamlining Marketing Processes Saves Time & Money
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Marketing campaigns are the flashy cars, grabbing attention and driving results. But even the most stunning car needs a well-oiled engine to function at its best. That's where marketing processes come in. A study by Aberdeen Group found that companies with mature marketing operations see a 34% improvement in campaign effectiveness. Yet, a staggering 76% of respondents in the Gartner Marketing Operations Survey 2020 admitted their organizations struggle to balance efficiency with maximizing campaign impact.
This points to a hidden cost: inefficient processes drain valuable time and resources. By taking the time to identify and streamline these processes, businesses can unlock significant savings and fuel marketing success.
Process Example
Current Situation: A small business owner is responsible for the company’s social media. They want to ensure the messages are aligned with plans and posted at the preferred times. Over the week, this owner spends 15 minutes a day creating and posting on 3 social media platforms. In one week, this adds up to 1 hour and 45 minutes. To make the numbers easy, let’s assume he makes $100/hour. The cost of this solution is $175 (1 hour & 45 minutes of time).
Alternative #1: The owner could create 10-20 template formats for his social posts reducing the time for creation. In addition, they could schedule the posts instead of going into the social networks each day. This cuts down the time to just one hour. The resulting cost is $100 – saving the business $75 vs. the original situation and giving the owner 45 minutes of valuable time back.
Alternative #2: Taking the process one step further, the owner could consider leveraging a junior employee for some of the work (making $25/hour). In this new process, the owner would email their social media ideas in list form to the junior employee. The junior team member would create posts using the template and then have them approved by the owner. Once approved, the junior team member would schedule them on social media. In this case, the owner would spend 15 minutes sending the list of ideas and 15 minutes reviewing posts (total of 30 minutes = $50). The junior employee would spend 30 minutes creating posts and 30 minutes scheduling (total of 1 hour = $25). The overall cost of this solution is $75, and the owner has gained another 30 minutes of time. In addition, a junior team member can expand their skill set.
There could be other process alternatives for this scenario. However, this example points out how important the processes are to the bottom line of a business. When considering these processes, we should keep in mind time and money and consider how delegation and technology can support the efficiency of the business.
Processes to Evaluate
The example above is just one marketing process to evaluate and document. Below are some additional ideas for other processes to review:
Calendar Scheduling: How are meetings scheduled and could calendar technology be leveraged to automate some parts of the process?
Content Planning: Are social media posts decided day by day or planned out in the future? Which process is right for your business and how could efficiencies be discovered?
Customer Service: Does the business have a process for who handles customer outreach?
Manuals or Brochures: Could AI be leveraged to create a first draft of a brochure that the team then refines, corrects, and makes stronger?
Meetings: Companies waste both time and money in inefficient meetings. Having a meeting just because it’s Tuesday isn’t a good reason. What is the role of each interaction and what are the deliverables at the conclusion of each session?
Summary
Our businesses are full of processes that impact the time of employees and the experience of customers. Taking the time to review these processes that often become “invisible” to employees can identify ways to save the business both time and money.
