Many big brands have made big mistakes in the past, with extensive campaigns going down the drain due to one wrong step. Thanks to these unfortunate errors navigating your way through the wrongs and rights just became that much easier. Throw in a bit of poker logic, and you’ve got a winning marketing campaign.
Even if the ad is small in marketing, the bet is considerable, with small ads becoming big stories overnight. Poker players avoid losing lump sums through risk calculation and bankroll management. That means that a player with $2 million in the bank doesn’t sit at a 2 million dollar chip table and then go all-in on the wrong hand.
Your company should play according to the same rules. Disciplined bankroll management and calculated risks are vital to keeping the budget in the market as in poker while seizing opportunities that deliver high returns on investment.
Here are a few interesting lessons you can learn from poker players that will help you learn how to manage your bankroll when laying out your marketing strategies.
Rules To Budget By
Ride It Out
A great poker player who places himself in situations where the odds are in his favor, hoping to win 90% of the games, actually he might lose 100 times in a row. Winning is not guaranteed, but the longer you take part, the higher the risk.
Not every marketing or investment will bear fruit, and many efforts sometimes fall flat time after time. Companies that wager too much on these investments will have difficulty surviving.
In 2017, an extensive campaign went so far south for Pepsi that according to wired.com Pepsi publicly apologized for their oversight and ended up pulling the ad. The advert left some viewers conflicted about whether or not to support the brand, forcing the company to take down the ad only 24 hours after its release.
The negative attention hurt the company’s potential revenue and damaged Pepsi’s brand sentiment, especially on social media. The cost of production, the involvement of one of the Kardashians, and the cost of having the ad spread across social media would have run into the hundreds of millions. Big brands such as Pepsi can afford to take a hit like this, but it should never have happened in the first place.
It is best to ride the ebb and flow between optimization of expected ROI and the preservation of the safety position. If limited opportunity begins to pay immediate money, bankroll management companies can double — compared to other companies that will not have the funds to continue.
No More “What Ifs”
When looking at marketing budgets, numbers are usually based on static assumptions and long lists of “what ifs.” Poker players would become bankrupt very quickly if they were to bet in the “what ifs” the way most marketers do.
Intelligent businesses look at past performance data and create smooth budgets that allow for unexpected event turns. Setting aside some money for possible opportunities, market teams can react faster to recent data and adjust expenditure based on information in real-time.
How To Win Big Without Going Broke
Baby Steps
Always keep enough money in case an investment opportunity comes along. Every month you should establish a target budget and never allow that budget to go to one single campaign. Allow that budget to be divided amongst several smaller campaigns. Large profits come from small expenses.
The key is to carry out many low-cost tests at once, despite the challenge of coming up with new ideas. Even small marketing sites can become massive gains. With so much at stake, business owners must pick their battles wisely.
Test and Invest
A “CMO Survey” done in 2017 found that companies of all sizes across all branches, who rely on analytics to make their decisions, have marketing budgets over 70% larger than their competitors. Is the analysis of data resulting in bigger bets and thus higher budgets?
If you do not have an analytical department, you can still spend a proportion of your resources on new, promising opportunities. Small investment tests can supply vital information even if you have limited scope.
Wiggle Room
Maintain fluid marketing plans and finances month after month. There are always new opportunities, but they just as quickly disappear. Construct wiggle room in the budget to prevent a single strategy from being too much of a risk.
Always double what works. Take successful Facebook ads; for example, these significant gains can only be made by making smooth budgets that accommodate new ideas for a moment. Just as a poker player needs cash when rich, marketers need to be prepared to adapt their priorities when golden opportunities arise.
How fast marketing channels can move is demonstrated by the fight between Snapchat and Instagram. Instagram suddenly had access to Instagram stories one day. The story feature is practically a carbon copy of the Snapchat format, and as a result, Instagram has overtaken its rival with over 300 million users.
The poker players and marketers strive to achieve a replicable strategy, which will lead to more sustainable and scalable successes, not just a one-off win. Savvy poker players have the best bankroll budgeting outlook, and marketers need to capitalize on it.
You won’t get anywhere if you don’t take risks. Poker players factor in the risk and decide based on the evidence at hand, not on analytics and all the “what ifs” that businesses tend to follow. It’s time you started taking notes from the real budgeting geniuses.
