My daughter just started college. Her father and I spent years saving for college, thinking about tuition, dorms, and books. Do you know what we never thought of?

The cost of decorating her dorm room. Apparently, this is the most important part of college. How I didn’t know it was beyond her. Clearly, when we started planning in 2003, her set of flower-shaped floor rugs should have been a priority.

That’s probably what spending marketing dollars in a post-pandemic world of 2022 is like. Unexpected expenses occur faster than college shoppers at Target. There are so many competing channels, tactics and advice out there. This is like spreading a pie baked for 8 to 30 of his. How can marketers get the most return on their investment?

Plan for marketing ROI in Q4 2022

Here are five guidelines for planning for 2022 and beyond.

Move to where your audience is

The biggest mistake we all make is assuming we know our audience. But the world is changing faster than we realize. In other words, the audience is also changing. Marketers have more data than ever before to research and understand their audiences, yet many of us rarely spend time analyzing it. and 57% of marketers feel overwhelmed by data.

Why not hang out where the audience is? Shop at your store. Please read the comments. Do a usability study. Call Your Customers — Yes, it may be radical, but it’s a great way to find out what your audience is thinking in real time. If one customer says it and then another customer says it, you’re probably seeing the beginning of a trend. You can get valuable clues like:

Related Article: 5 Things to Accomplish After a Customer Advisory Board Meeting

Don’t hire an architect when the hammer works

Marketers love big tools. The problem is that sophisticated technology platforms require setup, training, adoption, and maintenance. And those parts rarely fit in the budget. So spend all this money on buying tech platforms, and use 5% to 25% of it, wasting marketing dollars.

If it makes sense to procure a platform because it’s part of your long-term strategy, go ahead. But set aside dollars (and lots of them) for training and maintenance costs. Consider how your corporate culture will absorb your platform and prepare your internal team by demonstrating long-term value. Otherwise, everyone will be frustrated by the fact that it’s left unattended without anyone knowing how to use it, and it’s collecting dust.

Clarify your channel strategy (don’t waste money)

Each channel has a different sensibility, culture and audience. What might work well on Reel goes nowhere on TikTok. LinkedIn’s tone and tactics have changed, and personal posts may outperform Facebook. (Cue scream emoji.)

So how can you avoid wasting your paid and organic budget by publishing the same content on each channel with the expectation of the same results?

This is not crazy advice. Have a simple strategy for each channel. We use Insta for current employees, LinkedIn for clients and prospects, Twitter for community building, and Facebook for distributing videos and links. This is just one example, but it helps you think about how, why, and where you share your content, and how many dollars you’re willing to spend on each channel to avoid slicing the pie into 30 small slices. (Yeah, pie.)