Would you seriously knowingly waste your advertising budget? I hope you answered NO to that particular question.

Recently I had a very interesting conversation about advertising budget with a fellow internet marketer from the world of digital marketing. The conversation took place at a social gathering and over a glass or two of wine.

This particular persons job involved marketing her company’s cloud services to those who wish to use such a facility.

Being naturally interested in marketing I asked her what methods she used to promote her organisation’s services. Her reply was Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and several others whose names have escaped me, basically social media platforms which are of course all the rage right now.

Of course, being in the digital world of commerce it is only to be expected that her marketing campaigns will be on digital platforms.

When I enquired whether she would consider a direct mail campaign, she felt that such a marketing method would not be the correct way to approach her prospective customers. As her marketing campaigns were b2b campaigns we both agreed that a residential leaflet distribution campaign would probably not be the best marketing tool for her particular plans.

I then asked the question that all of us involved in various advertising and marketing campaigns ask marketing people “are your campaigns successful?” her answer surprised me.

“I know half of my advertising budget works; I just don’t know which half it is.” Yes, that was her answer.

Now, I have heard advertising people use this phrase for many years, and I suppose in the days before computers made it possible to compile accurate mailing lists and other information to enable advertisers to focus on their target markets, marketing was of a bit hit and miss affair.

However, I thought now there is a wealth of information and methods available to companies to identify the right people to target, the days of hit and miss marketing were over. It appears I am mistaken.

This lady openly admitted to me that half of her advertising budget was wasted, money down the drain as it were.

I wonder how many people using door drop leaflets would tolerate such a waste of money.

The beauty of using leaflets to advertise goods and services is that the results can be seen at the end of the campaign as long as they are carefully monitored and effectively tracked, and if all the relevant steps have been taken before the distribution is undertaken, the results should be very profitable.

I cannot envisage any marketing manager who commissioned a door drop campaign being willing to accept that half of the money allocated to the project was going to be wasted. Especially taking into consideration the fact that leaflets remain in the home for 38 days and that the message they carry is easily passed to friends and colleagues