Video Transcript

I’m Sarah and I am the finance director here at Element Three. I don’t know about you, but I am currently knee deep in strategic planning for next year and finishing up my fiscal budget. So when I’m finishing up and trying to eke out that little extra bit of margin, one of the very first things I end up looking at, always, is my marketing expense line. It feels really easy. I totally get it. It’s not headcount related, so it feels OK.

It’s not related to asking my sales team to increase their already lofty goals, so it feels easier to manage on my end. That feels easy right now, but may not be the best strategic decision long term, and I’m going to tell you why. So while I absolutely hate missing my margin targets, what I hate even more are poorly spent dollars.

So when I’m looking at that marketing expense line and I’m saying I can cut that reporting or we don’t need to do that website optimization this year, or we can put off that market research. I have to think about the unintended ripple effects that that has in the business.

So while in the short term, those decisions feel really easy. They aren’t really going to align with my long term strategy. So when I think about three years or five years or ten years from now, how are we going to reach those targets if we don’t make those appropriate investments now?

So as you’re finalizing those budgets and wrapping up those fiscal years, just keep in mind that you’re planning not just for this year, but for three years, for five years, for ten years. And you have to keep your strategic marketing initiatives in mind when you’re finishing up those plans.