3 Reasons why you should measure non-working marketing spend

Percolate posted a great infographic which looked at what they called ‘Working’ vs ‘Non-working’ spend in marketing. Working spend is the amount spent on distribution of messaging/content across different channels, the more we spend here the more people we reach. Yeah obvious I know. Non-working spend though, is all the other costs associated with producing the messaging/content and how you measure effectiveness, and is more likely rarely measured or considered.

Reduce non-working marketing spend

So a clear objective should be to increase Working spend and reduce Non-working spend, but I wonder really how many marketers even look at this, procurement will for sure, but their role is often in at the front of hiring an agency or technology and then move on to other departments and how many mid market companies have a procurement person?

Non working expenses make up 40% of the average advertising budget and 20% of the average marketing budget. That’s some gap. And Non working spend is on the increase…which affects Working which results in less effective messaging right?
Do you know what your Non working marketing/advertising budget is?

Of the things that other companies believe drives Non-Working spend the top two were;
41% said brief creation, planning and media evaluation
41% said the emergence of more expensive media formats

and of the things that other companies believe will provide control of their Non-Working spend
46% talk of creating better internal workflow and processes
31% talk of creating better processes for working with those outside the organisation
26% talk of leveraging Technology or systems

The takeaway for me here is:

1. Media/Marketing evaluation is key, know you’re Audience and the most effective channels for acquisition, conversion and retention. Obvious right?, well you’d be amazed how many organisations spend budget based on a personal opinion or gut feel.
2. The increase in channel fragmentation and cross channel/omni-channel marketing means you really need to push your money to those effective channels identified in 1 above. A measure here could be the effectiveness of the channel as well as the cost of creating the messaging/content
3. Lastly you should look more closely at what it costs to produce your messaging/content and maintain that as a KPI since it will ensure you’re not paying more than you should, and that more money goes in to 1 and 2 above resulting in more effective messaging for your money.