Financial management is the practice of dealing with the financial resources of a firm with the objective of effectively accomplishing organizational goals of business success with profitability. Finance is one of the most crucial functions in an organization as it directly deals with the profitability aspect of the organization. Financial management is taken care of by experts most of whom have financial management degrees and a certification in one of the various finance courses.
Being a financially successful enterprise is the aim of any organization and therefore, every function in the organization is expected to adhere to financial management norms and practices. Marketing and advertising being one such function in which financial management plays a major role, there are financial managers who dedicatedly work with the marketing teams in their organization. Marketing and advertising deals with the promotion of a product or service or several products and services that an organization sells. The mode and tools of promotion vary according to the purpose of the promotional campaign.
An organization may need to launch marketing and advertising campaigns for creating brand awareness. Sometimes they want to outsmart the competition and emerge and gain top of mind awareness. At other times, the organization looks to support the sales teams by generating more sales leads through its campaigns. For different campaigns, an organization can choose to use tools like television ads, print campaigns, radio spots, digital marketing or on ground events, amongst many others. Mostly, it is a combination of several modes of communication to reach different customers effectively. Any marketing function is involved in a lot of back end activities like conducting market research, choosing vendors, printing marketing collaterals and hiring agencies for developing creatives and overseeing on ground events.
A successful marketing and advertising campaign may require a lot of strategic planning, executional brilliance and a significant monetary budget. All aspects of an organization’s marketing efforts need the organization’s investment. A finance manager’s job is to ensure that all marketing investments are beneficial for the company either in the short term or the long term. The returns on marketing investment is an important criterion for approving any marketing campaign and the job of the finance manager is to look into the potential benefit of any marketing activity. Some would say that marketing and finance is a match made in heaven.
Benefits of Financial Management in the Marketing and Advertising
There are several benefits of financial management in the marketing and advertising domain. Some of them are discussed below –
1. Financial Management Provides Funds for the Right Campaign at the Right Time
Financial managers sit at a strategic level with the top management and once a campaign or marketing activity has been duly checked by them, they can present a sound case to the upper management to get it approved. By keeping a check on various marketing spends, a financial manager can save funds on marketing investments that matter.
2. Financial Management Helps Keep Marketers on a Budget
Financial manager understands the strategic needs of the organization and accordingly keeps tabs on how much money should marketing be allowed. At any point, whenever the organization needs to understand the validity of any marketing investment, the top management asks the financial managers for their professional view on the matter. Marketing and finance can together come to a consensus on marketing needs and its relevance in meeting the organizational objectives.
It is the responsibility of the marketing team to manage the budget effectively. However, as they are more involved with the creativity and the marketing brilliance of the job, the financial aspects are overlooked as the marketers go overboard. This may lead to financial mistakes, some of which may be disastrous for the company.
Financial managers can help forecast the marketing spends and plan in advance for various marketing elements. They also help the marketing team in compliance of the best practices in accounting.
3. Financial Management Adds Financial Acumen to Creativity
While marketers spend their time and energy on creating and executing effective marketing campaigns, they do not have the resources or the skill to manage the financial aspects of marketing. From budgeting to payments, financial skills are required in the marketing domain at every step. And hence it needs an expert to handle all these elements so that the marketers can focus on the creative part of marketing and advertising.
Financial management enables marketing and advertising functions to stay on track, manage the financial aspects of business accurately and avoid any financial blunders that may cost the company. Finance is a partner to marketing and takes care of the analytical side of marketing. With the analytical side of finance teaming up with the creative side of marketing, organization benefits from the synergy created between the two.
This brings up a conclusion that managing finance requires skill and with the stated importance, it becomes quintessential for working professionals to own this skill and contribute to organizations’ profit as well as individual growth. There are many online finance courses/certifications that allow working professionals to work while they learn. Enrol now to escalate your financial knowledge & become an indispensable resource.
The success of any business depends largely on the techniques it adopts to successfully sell its products to the customer. To keep up with the changing needs of consumers and trends in the industry, businesses are required to change their marketing efforts and tools. Thanks to digital marketing, building a brand is made easier now, and moreover, with financial management in play, paid campaigns are now well monitored.
Paid marketing refers to advertising your products on the internet through search engines. Paid marketing constitutes an array of terminologies like search engine marketing (SEM), SEO, PPC, cost per click CPC and more. Targeted paid search shows ads to users based on their recent searches. These searches suggest desire, need or interest in a product that a business provides.
With paid search, they reach out to users who have identified themselves as potential customers. For e.g., if a user searches for online courses in digital marketing or digital marketing certification, the search results will come in all sorts, ranging from online marketing courses to universities and locations where the course may be provided.
Once the user has seen them, the ads will follow him/her on every other distinctive web page that he/she visits. Therefore, every click on the ad, whatsoever number of times, will generate expenditure on your part as the paid advertiser to the search engine like Google Adwords or Yahoo, Bing Network.
As simple as that sounds, paid marketing is not everyone’s cup of tea. Not every marketer is keen about a paid campaign. Some of the reasons that affect this attitude are fluctuating market trends that affect budget estimation, the unpredictability of traffic on the website and lack of awareness of the consumer market which results in bidding for less relevant keywords.
Paid campaign is a must for products that need a higher level of education. However, sometimes even the most inspiring ads fail to drive traffic to the storefront. Paid marketing is not a substitute for brand building. Building a credible brand image is a result of years’ consistent hard work. Despite all the challenges, a paid marketing campaign can turn out to be beneficial with meticulous tactics. Here’s how:
Pay Per click
PPC strategy is important to maintain control over the ad campaign. It defines the incoming traffic by using strategies like the call to action (CTA), determining target customers and an effectual landing page conforming to the platform given by Google Adwords.
Relevance in Keywords
Marketers strive to bid on accurate keywords worth spending their money on. Using the right keywords is vital to winning the game of paid marketing.
Text Ads
You can measure the effectiveness of the Adwords in your ad campaign with Wordstreamer’s Adwords Performance Grader. Parameters like Text Ad optimization & impression share, click-through rate & quality score will help you gauge your campaign performance and guide you to optimize spends.
Google Display Network
Define your target audiences first, and on that basis chalk out relevant keywords list using Google display network. You can then use it on a viable platform like Buy sell Ads to market on other sites categorically.
Paid marketing might sound like a gamble. But once you learn how to use it, you can capitalize on this digital marketing tool for growing your business.
More Information:
How to Become a PPC Expert in 2022?
Embarking on a Successful Career in Finance