True Cost of Bad Marketing

Hiring inexperienced, desperate, and/or bad marketing agencies directly and indirectly leads to revenue loss. Don’t underestimate the true cost of bad marketing, which goes far beyond the employee(s) cost and/or agency fees. Look, internally, no one is doing anything wrong. In our experience, it’s a combination of shifting priorities, chasing the wrong markets and/or clients, and execution. Marketers work their toosh off, and everyone needs help, which is why we’re here.  Below are some basic scenarios and a few real situations we corrected for our clients. You’re not alone. It happens. 

Wasting the Budget with No ROI

Bad agencies run ineffective campaigns, leading to zero meaningful returns on ad spend, SEO, content, or social media efforts. Money is spent on ads that don’t convert. SEO investments yield no long-term ranking improvements. Content marketing produces low engagement and traffic. Here’s a real example that a client experienced with another agency: Over six months, the client spent $10,000.00 on Facebook ads with another agency. Due to poor paid ads targeting via intuition and zero analytics, not adhering to their brand benefits, low-quality creatives, and lacking a strategy, the client generated only $2,000 in revenue for a net loss of $8,000. Gross. P.S. Don’t do boosted posts.

Damaging the Brand

Inexperienced, desperate, and/or bad marketing relies spammy tactics (e.g., purchasing followers and engagement, fake reviews, clickbait ads,  irrelevant outreach, etc.). Customers and prospective customers get frustrated with poor communication, misleading messaging, and a bad or confusing experience that doesn’t align with what you claim to be. Loss of customer trust equals lower conversion rates. Bad press or negative online reviews equal fewer future customers. Simple, right? Here’s a real example that a client experienced with another agency and the two-person internal marketing team: A client hired an agency to increase their social media followers, improve engagement to attract influencers and a community, and revenue growth. Their internal team needed help because they were swamped. So, instead of following through on their objectives, the agency paid for fake followers, paid for bots to leave garbage comments and likes, attracted NSFW influencers, and didn’t generate revenue. The agency didn’t provide performance analytics (because they didn’t know how) or record their work (ethics and transparency, people). These dirty pay-for-play tactics may look good at first, but the veneer degrades and will always come back to hurt you. People are savvy on these things, and they’ll notice and lose trust that can’t be recovered.

Losing Market Share to Competitors

A bad agency delays business growth by forcing companies to restart marketing efforts from scratch. A loss in traction means you lose market share while your competitors gain more market share. FYI, we track our clients’ competitors. If we see our clients’ competitors losing traction, we attack. So, the need to restart marketing efforts should only be done if the brand is burnt, and it is collaboratively executed with experts.

Ignoring Sales and Business Development

Poorly executed marketing doesn’t just fail at acquiring new customers, it also fails at maximizing revenue from existing ones. Lower repeat purchases from poor email marketing, remarketing, or loyalty programs. Poor branding and messaging cause customers to drop off faster.

Disregarding Compliance and Ethics

Bad agencies may use unethical tactics like false advertising, copyright violations, or data privacy breaches. Companies can face fines, lawsuits, or bans from platforms. Be ethical and compliant. 

True Cost of Bad Marketing Goes Beyond Revenue

Hiring inexperienced, desperate, and/or the wrong marketing agency is a revenue killer and indirectly destroys future potential. So, how do you avoid this? Hire a qualified agency that is willing to provide historical performance on their rate of return (ROR) or return on investment (ROI). You need this data because it demonstrates the agency prioritizes data and performance over the stuff that doesn’t matter. Request case studies and testimonials. Ask about marketing compliance and your industry compliance. Better yet, ask for referrals. When new clients ask for referrals, we tell them to visit our Experience page and choose any business to call. Contact The Method Marketing to confidentially discuss your situation at 216-738-9541 or info@TheMethodMarketing.com.