It goes without saying that, the more effective a company is with their marketing efforts, the greater their chances of increasing revenue and brand awareness. Marketing is a vital function for any growing business. This is a reason that companies spend millions and sometimes tens of millions of dollars on various marketing campaigns. Even industry leaders with well-established brands are constantly spending to enhance their brands. Not only are they spending, but they are analyzing and evaluating their marketing strategy so that they can determine how to maximize their efforts.

Building brand equity and increasing awareness are equally as important for entrepreneurs, small business owners and professionals trying to build a practice. Some could argue that ineffective marketing is even more damaging to a company or business that is not well-established since the margin for error is smaller. However, the challenge is that many of them do not have the ability to spend the same amount of money or time marketing their services as do more well-established companies/brands. So, the question becomes: How do you most effectively build your brand with limited resources?

The first and most important thing you want to do is understand that there is a difference between cost and price. Too many professionals do not make that distinction, which leads them to pursue activities that have a low price — which is good — but little value — which is bad. Blogs and social media platforms provide a perfect illustration of this concept. Let’s use Twitter as an example. The actual price for establishing a Twitter account and tweeting can be zero. However, the actual cost of doing so depends on how effective you are. If you spend hours each day tweeting, have limited followers and no real engagement, then the cost is greater than zero. Those are hours that you could be spending on other, more impactful activities. Opportunity cost is a real thing. Everyone only has a limited amount of time, and how you use that time impacts your ability to grow your business or practice. Sometimes you may have to spend more money on activities because they yield better results — and that is preferred.

Even when you use a program that will generate the tweets for you, if these tweets don’t effectively demonstrate your value and how you are uniquely qualified to solve a problem, then that can be harmful to your brand. Creating a lot of non-value added content makes others think less of your offering.

The same theory applies to networking. People attend networking functions all the time because the concept seems good and the price to attend is usually minor. If you attend an event and don’t make meaningful contacts, then the opportunity cost associated with attending was greater than the price. So, an event that appeared to be free and with great possibilities actually prevented you from making progress on other efforts.

I am not saying that you should not network or use social media, but I am saying the actual cost depends on your effectiveness. If you are a great writer and your writing or tweeting inspires prospects to engage and want to learn more about your offerings, then that is a resource you should continue to use. Similarly, if you attend networking events and have no problem making meaningful contacts and developing helpful relationships, then you should continue to go.

Time is limited and opportunity cost is real. All of your marketing and brand-building decisions should be based on expected return or value — not price. Professionals have different skill sets, so what works for some may not work for others. When building your brand, it’s most important to focus on what works best for you and to make sure you are concentrating on expected return, which takes into account value, outcome and price. Don’t make decisions based solely what appears to be the cheapest option, because you may learn the hard way that it wasn’t really cheap at all.