It is unfortunate to say, but you often find that business owners, who likely have no experience in marketing, throw their marketing budget at a number of different channels without really ever considering what is the most effective and efficient way to spend their money.

When considering the best way to utilise a budget, it is worth bearing in mind that not all marketing channels will influence consumers in the same way. It could be like with the ‘blanket marketing campaigns’ with advertising on the radio or TV; where the targeting is very limited in scope and the return you see is often in terms of brand recognition rather than an immediate return, or it could be like with search marketing, where your ability to target people looking for your services is very strong and you generally see an immediate (or at least easily attributable) return. Because of the differences in influence it can be difficult to say which is the most effective, so you need to look a number of different factors to truly determine what is and isn’t effective, which are; branding (what is often a more long term strategy for developing business) and an immediate return.

Because you know what the two factors you need to consider when determining the value of a marketing campaign, determining which is the worst and least effective form of marketing is actually quite simple. All you need to do is look at the platform which neither helps your brand or gives you an immediate return on your investment; cold calling. Cold calling often leaves a bad impression which can end up damaging your brand, and as people will often not listen to a cold call (typically hanging up within the first 20 seconds), your ability to sell products to the people you call is extremely restrained.