In this conversational episode, Eric Siu and Neil Patel outline five marketing spend categories where cutting costs can backfire. They start with hiring talent, arguing that paying for expertise is essential and likening it to hiring a specialist surgeon. Next, they stress the long‑term value of branding, noting that brand perception drives purchase decisions even for low‑involvement products. They then discuss events, from intimate dinners to large conferences, emphasizing that cheap experiences damage brand reputation. The fourth point is content creation; they claim that producing abundant blog, social, video, and podcast material builds an audience that ultimately drives sales, using Kylie Jenner as an example. Finally, they warn against skimping on critical marketing software—CRMs and automation tools—suggesting that while early‑stage startups can use free or low‑cost options, scaling businesses should invest in platforms like HubSpot or ActiveCampaign for multi‑digit ROI. The episode closes with a plug for marketingschool.io/live and a request for ratings, reviews, and subscriptions.
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Today, we're going to talk about 5 marketing expenses that you shouldn't be cheap on. So building on the last episode, the number one thing that you shouldn't be cheap on is when you're hiring talent. Okay. Neil and I have learned this over the years, trying to nickel and dime to save a few extra bucks is just not worth it. At the end of the day, if someone knows what they're doing, they know what they're worth and you should just pay it. If not pay them a little more, because if you want a good job done, you pay, you pay the people that know what's going on. So the analogy I've used in the past is, If you're gonna hire someone to redesign your home, or I guess even more extreme, if you're gonna hire someone to do surgery on you, you wanna have someone that's a specialist that's done it a lot because it's a very high stakes type of thing. And if you decide to go cheap, this is broad across the board, you know what? You're gonna have to pay the price for that long-term because the time that you lose is actually more expensive than the dollars that you're trying to save. Neil?
Number 2, branding. In marketing, everyone thinks about ROI. Spend a dollar, how much more am I going to make? I want people to start thinking about, I spend a dollar, my right audience may see me. They may not buy from me. That's okay. In the long run, I'm building a brand. When you think about products that you buy on a regular basis, from toothpaste to toothbrushes to toilet paper, a lot of it's related to brand, even things like your laundry detergent. Even when you buy things that are infrequent, like a car, you're not always Googling best car to buy, a 4-door sedan. More so you're just like, I want a BMW. I want a Mercedes. A lot of that is related to branding. So don't be cheap on branding.
Yeah. Number 3, we talked about events in the last episode. I think going cheap on events is actually going to hurt you quite a bit. So when I say events, I could mean a small dinner or even hosting a larger event with 50, 150 people or thousands of people. Neil and I have spoken to a lot of different conferences around the world. And we've both been to conferences where they go cheap on it. And you can tell when they go cheap on it, it actually becomes a conversation and it actually hurts the brand. To Neil's point, talking about brand, when you think about conferences, don't try to go cheap, make sure it's an amazing experience, not just on the speakers and the networking side. You have to make sure the entire thing is top-notch. Same thing for dinners too, right? If you're gonna invite people to a dinner, what I would recommend personally is if you're able to afford it, you gather the people and you just cover the bill and make sure you just make sure it's a private room. And that's gonna already be an amazing event cuz you're putting together and you're paying people. Or you're paying for the meal. If you put— I've been to dinners before where it's not exactly the best feeling when I get invited to a dinner and then I'm asked, it's not like I can't pay for it, but when I'm asked to pay for it and we're asked to all take our credit cards out, it's not exactly the best experience. So don't try to go cheap because people will actually talk about it and it's actually going to have a negative effect long-term on your brand.
Number 4, content is king. I recommend that you produce a lot of content. And what you'll find is in marketing, producing blog content, social media content, the videos, the audio content like podcasts, it's really hard to track the ROI and generate a massive return on it, at least in the short run. But the thing is you're building that community. The future of marketing is owning your audience. Kylie Jenner didn't end up creating a billion-dollar company because she created a makeup, I think it was, was it makeup or lipstick? Either way, it was a beauty brand. And she didn't do it by creating the beauty brand. She did it by building an audience and then leveraging the audience to sell products. If she created the company first and then her brand after, it wouldn't have done well. She had to build the audience first. Audiences are worth an arm and a leg. So create the content so you can build an audience.
Yeah. Number 5, last but not least, this one you have to be a little careful with, but obviously you don't want your software expenses to compound uncontrollably. So you want to be managing it. You can use a tool like Brex. That's brex.com, or you can use ramp.com to manage employee expenses as well and kind of shut things down on and off. But what I found over the years is trying to go cheap on critical marketing software. So it might be like a CRM is not exactly the best move because the CRM actually provides a lot of value. So I think if you're starting out, yes, absolutely. Let's just use CRM as an example and use a Pipedrive or use something for free, right? That can be, or even use a spreadsheet, but as you get bigger and bigger, actually shelling out the dollars to pay for like a HubSpot or like even ActiveCampaign as an example, they're becoming a CRM that's going to actually pay off for you because you should look at it as, are you getting a 4x, 5x, 10x return from this? So again, if it's critical software, don't try to go cheap on it. I'd say for other software, make sure you cut ruthlessly. So you gotta be careful there. That is it for today. marketingschool.io/live, that's L-I-V-E, to learn about our virtual event and our live event. And don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. It would really help us. Neil would be really— we really love you just a little bit more. All right. Even though we already love you. So that's it for today and we'll see you tomorrow.
