Should I pay for that? Make better marketing decisions with our 3-step framework
Years ago, I had a front-row seat to a high-stakes gamble at one of the world's leading tech giants. A colleague was orchestrating a marketing campaign, into which she channeled millions of dollars. Initially, the results were disheartening because the immediate return on investment was practically nonexistent despite a surge of interest from partners and potential clients. If you only measured success by immediate revenue, it appeared to be a colossal failure, but that would have been the wrong way to look at this campaign. Years later, the venture she invested in has grown into multi-billion-dollar enterprise, likely in part thanks to the groundwork that campaign laid.
On the other side of the coin, I've seen poor investment decisions in action too. An inexperienced CEO at a smaller tech company spent $2 million to make a relatively minor update to his website, a move that neither attracted partners nor customers. The decision backfired; the company bled money and soon faced laying off employees.
The distinction between these two scenarios might seem stark in hindsight, but in the heat of the moment, it can be incredibly challenging to discern a wise investment from a wasteful expenditure. Even seasoned professionals with lots of venture capital funding grapple with this uncertainty.
If you're in the healthcare field, whether you're an owner of a medical clinic, a holistic health coach, yoga instructor, massage therapist, acupuncturist, dentist, therapist or other, you're no stranger to making frequent decisions about where to channel your marketing budget. And the truth is, you don't always even need to spend money. There are many free marketing avenues you can explore. So, how can you be sure when to invest big and when to lean into these cost-effective alternatives?
Enter the PRO Marketing Spend Framework—a guide Healthy Marketing designed to help you answer the questions: “Should I spend money on that now?” “Could I get away with the free version of this marketing modality or would I be better off paying money?” “I want to do this campaign eventually, but is now the right time? Is this the right way?”
This framework empowers you to make confident, informed decisions, determining when to spend and when to leverage free resources. It's about becoming strategic and smart with your marketing, understanding where your dollar will make the most impact, and when you can be resourceful and scrappy instead.
Introducing our PRO marketing framework.
This simple framework can help you make much better, easier, calmer decisions about where to spend money on marketing. Read on to learn how.
PRO marketing spend framework explained
PRO stands for: Purpose, Resources, and Outcomes.
It’s meant to be used as a step-by-step framework that helps you navigate the essential questions about the current state of your business. Ideally, it’s returned to time and time again as the business changes. By moving through your answers, the “should I or shouldn’t I?” questions about whether to spend now should be a clearer to answer.
Then again, nothing’s perfect. This framework unfortunately doesn’t guarantee any specific outcomes or a one-size-fits all solution. It may help you find peace in your decision, though.
With this in mind, let’s get started.
Purpose: What is your business here to do?
Everyone understands the term "purpose" on a personal level, but when it comes to business, it can be a little more complex. Mark Twain summarized it nicely with his quote:
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
In a business context, defining your purpose requires introspective exploration into the genuine reasons for your endeavors. Before you invest money, ask yourself if this investment aligns with your purpose.
Allow me to illustrate this point with another tale from my days in the tech industry—a lesson that has held true in the healing arts sector too.
In a cash-strapped, venture-funded business I once belonged to, we were faced with a tempting proposition. A potential big-ticket client made an offer that could have single-handedly met our quarterly revenue targets. The catch? To fulfill their request, we would have had to divert almost our entire engineering team away from our core product to build them a custom solution we wouldn’t have been able to re-package for other customers.
A seasoned venture capitalist on our board gave us some sage advice. He reminded us that chasing this short-term revenue would lead us astray from our primary mission. We heeded his advice, turned down the offer, and years later, the business has grown and is thriving because we remained true to our vision. It served as a stark reminder that not all that glitters is gold—especially if it distracts us from our core purpose. This isn’t to say that trying new things is bad. As a business owner, you just need to ask yourself: is this going to serve my greater purpose or ultimately be a short-sided endeavor?
So, as a healing arts practitioner, consider whether there's something you've been contemplating spending money on or offering that might provide a temporary boost but ultimately take you off your path. Even though you’re taking stock of your purpose now, we’d recommend that coming back to this step again after you’ve finished the PRO framework as a final sanity check that what you’d like to accomplish gels with your overall strategy. Only then can you confidently decide whether it's worth proceeding.
Resources: What do you have to spend? (hint: we’re not just talking about money)
Having firmly established your purpose, it's now time to assess your resources. This step is vital; it sets the groundwork for what you can realistically do. It's often the case that you'll have more of one resource than another, so understanding what you have available to you will help guide your marketing initiatives.
Let's break resources down into three main categories: 1) Cold hard cash, 2) Time, and 3) Skill set.
Cold hard cash: The easiest resource to quantify is your budget. While money alone won't guarantee success, it can shortcut some steps by providing the means to outsource tasks, allow you to cut the line to some degree in terms of getting fast results, as well as purchase additional tools and services.
Time: This classic saying rings true here - "Time is money." The time you can dedicate to your marketing efforts can either be your best friend or your biggest constraint. If you're willing to roll up your sleeves and put in the 'sweat equity,' you can achieve significant results without a hefty budget. Just remember that spending your time wisely also means recognizing when it's more efficient to delegate or outsource a task.
Skill set: This dimension ties in closely with time and money. Suppose you're considering a DIY approach for a project but lack the necessary skills. In that case, you need to assess whether this really is the most cost effective way of getting the work done. Should you learn the skill yourself, thus burning time? Or would it make more sense to hire someone, or outsource the work quicker? Also remember that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you will - sometimes you need to ask for help to move forward.
So, take a moment to evaluate what you currently have that you could put toward a marketing initiative. Is it time? Money? Skills? What else? Understanding your resources will help you make a more informed decision about how to proceed with your marketing efforts. Please note there are tons of free or nearly free ways to extend your brand with content marketing. Read our blog, “Seven content marketing ideas,” to learn more.
Outcomes: What do you aim to achieve with this campaign?
With your business's purpose firmly in mind and a clear understanding of the resources at your disposal, we can now turn to the exciting part: defining your desired outcomes. This is the final piece of the puzzle before diving into the specifics of when to spend money on various campaign strategies.
Setting clear, specific goals is a non-negotiable step of any marketing strategy. We wrote a whole blog about the dangers of not doing this before moving forward with an SEO strategy called, “What's holding your SEO back? (Hint: it probably isn't what you think.)” It might seem obvious, but grounding your actions in concrete objectives is a step that is frequently overlooked. Many of us are wired to get excited about a specific tactic rather than spend all day thinking about strategic outcomes. As you weigh whether to allocate your marketing dollars towards a specific initiative, first ask yourself: "What is it that I'm aiming to achieve here?" Don’t move forward until you can defend what you want from the investment, and why.
Let's get more specific. Here are some possible broad outcomes you might be considering:
Increased brand awareness: Maybe your goal is to get your name out there, make more people aware of the unique services you offer. This is a great one to focus on, and it may also not help you get revenue in the door right away.
A larger customer base: Perhaps you're looking to attract more clients or patients to your practice. That can help juice your business later but you may have had to offer a steep discount or hire another person or other big expenditure to get that volume through the door.
Higher sales: This could mean increasing revenue, whether through selling more of your existing services or introducing a new offering. We all want more money, and if focused here you just have to watch out to make sure you’re valuing relationships alongside revenue.
Improved customer retention: You might be aiming to keep your existing clients engaged and returning for more. This is a great focus area for established practitioners, but probably can’t exist in a vacuum for anyone trying to build new clients into their portfolio.
An inflection point in time: Sometimes we do marketing campaigns to support an important initiative: hiring a new person, opening a new location, etc. Creating an objective around something tangibly happening is a great way to be honest about supporting that initiative.
A favorite goal framework many use to make sure their campaign goals are robust is: SMART goals. This isn’t something we made up, but is really useful. It involves making your objectives Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. So, don't be afraid to declare: "I aim to launch a campaign using [a specific strategy] to acquire [a number you choose] of new clients or generate [an amount you need for your business] of revenue by [insert date] date." If you don’t have all those elements, try to get them before spending time or money. Try to be realistic, stretching yourself, but also ensuring your goal feels achievable.
By getting very specific about your intended outcome, you add the final ingredient to your decision-making process, allowing you to contemplate more effectively when and how to spend money on your marketing campaign. As mentioned above, don’t hesitate in re-running the idea through the framework a second time with fresh eyes - does your idea align to your purpose, do you have the means to execute it, and are you sure you’re not kidding yourself about what you hope to achieve?
Applying PRO marketing spend framework to different types of marketing
Let's see how the PRO marketing spend framework can guide decisions in different marketing modalities:
Search - organic vs paid: If your principles align with long-term growth and you have resources in terms of time and SEO knowledge, organic search might be the best place to focus your energy. However, if you're looking for immediate visibility and have the budget for it, paid search can yield quicker outcomes.
Social media - earned vs paid: If your resources include a personable team with time to engage on social platforms and your outcomes include building a community around your brand, earned social media could be a great fit. Conversely, if your outcome goal is quick exposure to a wider audience, and you have the budget, paid social media can be a good investment.
Webinars - hosting your own vs paying to be in someone else’s: Hosting your own webinar aligns with principles of authority and community building, requiring time and expertise resources, but can lead to outcomes of increased credibility and customer engagement. Paying for a spot in someone else's webinar requires financial resources, but can offer immediate access to a broader audience. If you’re going to host your own, you’ll need a strong call-to-action on your website. Read our blog, “What are CTAs? The Do's and Don'ts of CTA Design,” to learn more.
Driving blog readership - guest blogging vs paid promotion: Guest blogging aligns with principles of community engagement, requires time and writing resources, and can lead to outcomes of increased visibility and credibility. Paid promotions require financial resources and can lead to immediate increases in readership.
Summary: Recapping the PRO marketing spend framework
In this blog post, we discussed the PRO Marketing Spend Framework, a guide for healing arts practitioners to help them make confident, informed decisions about when to spend money on marketing and when to leverage free resources. We outlined the three key steps of the framework:
Purpose: What is your business here to do?
Resources: What do you have to spend?
Outcomes: What do you aim to achieve with this campaign?
We also provided some examples of possible outcomes that you might be considering, such as increased brand awareness, a larger customer base, higher sales, improved customer retention, or an inflection point in time. Now to put it into practice!
BONUS: A challenge for you
Are you ready to embrace the PRO marketing spend framework? Chances are, if you’ve made it this far, you have a big marketing decision in front of you. Our challenge is to take the time to remember to consider your purpose, assess your resources, and define clear outcomes. It's exciting to think about how your marketing initiatives will thrive when you take the time to honor your decision-making in a structured way.
Two additional exercises to try if you want more:
Think of a successful (or failed - so many learnings in these too!) marketing program you’ve executed before for your business. This time, analyze it through the PRO framework. Is there anything you may have changed knowing what you know now?
Think of a marketing campaign someone else has run that you admire. Run that program through the PRO framework, thinking about your own business. What can you learn about how elements of it were likely used?
We're confident in you and can't wait to see the remarkable results your marketing efforts will produce with the help of the PRO marketing spend framework. Go ahead and make those confident, strategic decisions!