How Much Are You Really Spending on Marketing & Sales Materials?

The rapid emergence of digital content underlined a significant issue in producing printed materials: the cost. Traditional media just cannot match the cost-effective nature of digital content, especially in marketing and sales.

Imagine printing sets of posters, billboards, flyers, brochures and magazines every time your company releases new product features. On top of that, you would also need to publish materials for different target demographics and locations to cater to their specific interests. Combining all these expenses, printed materials are going to take a huge chunk of your marketing and sales budget.

That’s why shifting to digital materials is critical to lowering your overall marketing and sales costs. Producing this type of material requires lower overhead expenses while providing better return-on-investment (ROI). With that in mind, let’s look at your new budget for digital marketing and sales materials.

How Much Should You Spend on Marketing and Sales Materials?

Total marketing budgets are typically between 5% to 12% of the company’s total revenue. For businesses with less than $5 million in sales, the U.S. Small Business Administration recommends allocating 7% to 8% of gross revenue for marketing and advertising. Meanwhile, new businesses should spend around 12-20% of their gross revenue on marketing, more than the amount established companies spend.

With increasing budget allocations, marketing teams are looking into channels with the highest potential returns. Compared to traditional marketing, digital marketing has a higher ROI, with 82% of businesses reporting higher returns after switching to a full digital strategy. Leads from organic search on digital channels are also 750% more likely to close than leads gained from traditional media.

Digital campaigns and channels include search engine optimization (SEO), PPC advertising, social media marketing, email marketing and content marketing. All of these strategies rely on solid marketing and sales materials.

Ideally, creating marketing and sales materials involves extensive research, strategy, development and analytics. Research, analytics and strategy cost at least $5,000, which includes analysis of your current content, competitor surveys, resource management, content planning and more. Fortune 500 companies often spend as much as $50,000 on content strategy alone.

Developing high-quality content falls between $500 to $3,000, depending on production costs. Digital marketing and sales materials include curated content, articles and blog posts, videos, case studies, infographics, resource portals, interactive content and presentations.

These materials are often the first touchpoints of your leads with your brand. First impressions matter, so your marketing and sales materials should tell your brand story well. And, the only way to build authority and trust with your audience is through engaging, consistent and personalized materials.

Why Invest in Digital Marketing and Sales Materials?

In today’s digital-first world, customers expect personalized interactions with brands. Up to 61% of leads expect brands to tailor content, materials and experiences to their preferences. Your marketing and sales materials are no exception to this rule.

The demand for customized content is impossible to achieve in traditional printed media. As market interests change rapidly, you should always be ready to update and modify your marketing and sales collateral to take advantage of such opportunities.

For example, Millenials’ and Gen Z's rising market in real estate pose unique trends in the industry, such as co-living spaces and proximity to business areas. Real estate materials should reflect the interest of these younger generations to capture their attention.

Combined with the right content marketing strategies, marketing and sales materials can amplify your brand awareness and credibility, increase your online traffic, boost your social media following and even drive visibility to your website.

A unique and clever way to incorporate all your digital content into interactive media is through online presentations.

Interactive Online Presentations—Your Competitive Edge

Online presentations allow you to add multiple types of content, from articles to videos, in one interactive experience. Create brand stories that highlight your products and services while engaging the audience.

For instance, HYPERICE, a company that offers a set of tools to help athletes improve their performance, used to rely on InDesign for its sales and trade show presentations.  But, their old presentations cannot translate the “wow” factor of their products.

HyperIce presentation demo
0%Interactive sales presentation by HyperIce

Using an interactive online presentation software - Ingage - they added interactive elements, such as bullets that open to expand details, videos, infographics and captivating cover pages to their online presentations. Their new digital materials effectively showcased the HYPERICE story in an engaging way, while effectively explaining the product line and its benefits.

There are even more benefits of using interactive presentations as sales materials:

  • Cost-effective - Billboards cost around $250 to $15,000 per month on top of the cost of printing the ad. Direct mail costs $50 to $20,000, depending on the size of your mailing list. The price of newspaper and magazine placements depends on the circulation and the size of the ad, but it can fluctuate from $250 to $500,000.  With digital sales materials, you don’t have to spend on anything else aside from the presentation software. You can launch interactive presentations on your website and social media pages at no extra cost. You can also use it during a face-to-face sales pitch or a conference.
  • Easy to create - The platform’s intuitive and user-friendly UI makes it easy for you to create powerful presentations even without design or coding knowledge. The software also comes with templates that can be customized depending on the user’s needs.
  • Trackable performance - Measure the ROI of sales materials by monitoring its analytics. Once you access the Analytics tab, you will see data and insights that reflect each presentation within the team and the overall usage within a certain period of time. You can check various reports about your presentation, including views, page duration, page views, presentation duration, section duration and section views. These metrics will help you determine which presentations are performing and improve them based on your customers’ interests.

Wrapping Up

Maximizing the ROI of your sales and marketing materials means leveraging the most effective channels right now. With customers spending majority of their time online, producing digital content is crucial for converting leads and connecting with customers. A powerful sales presentation platform is crucial in increasing your revenue potential.

Creating sales presentations using Ingage can help lower your marketing cost while making the most out of your marketing collateral. Develop personalized marketing and sales materials in hours, not days, using ready-made templates.  Close more deals by creating memorable content using interactive elements. Then, instantly engage your customers by securely sharing your content with your team members regardless of their location. Explore more advanced features like analytics, video cover page, lock page, and more when you book a demo with us.

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