A £99-a-month lesson in what convenience actually buys you
Every business faces the same problem – choice! It’s a modern-day problem.
Marketing agencies claiming to solve your problems are ten a penny. And many make bold claims at low costs. You’re left with the decision: which supplier, which platform, do you pick? And often the choice is to go with the lowest-risk option – the cheap one. It is faster to set up. It takes up the least amount of your time. And in their own marketing, they promise results.
Unfortunately, cheap, easy and effective rarely exist together. There’s always an invisible cost.
A case in point
A residential care provider we now work with had been running its Facebook page through a previous agency for months. On paper, the arrangement looked sound: regular posting, a low-cost flat monthly fee, and no time required from anyone on the client’s team. It looked like a service doing its job.
In practice, the page had gone quiet in every way that mattered. Posts were generic, built from the same keyword-stuffed template rotated week after week, heavy on phrases like “homecare agencies” and “domiciliary care” repeated for search engines rather than written for people. Nothing in the tone, the branding, the photography, or the content suggested by a specific team, a specific place, or a specific set of people doing the work. It read like it had been generated at a distance, because it had.
Over five and a half months, that page published a post every day, sometimes twice a day. Total engagement across all of them amounted to fewer than 40 interactions. The average post earned a quarter of a like. Most achieved no likes at all.
This was not a failure of effort. It was a failure of fit. The arrangement was convenient: low cost, no oversight required, nothing to think about. It simply did not work.
What changed
When we took the page over, we did not increase the posting schedule. We reduced it, roughly halving the frequency, and changed what filled the space. Posts became specific: a carer helping a lost dog find its way home, a birthday bouquet picked up between visits, a genuine 10 out of 10 review score with the numbers behind it, honest recruitment posts naming the person doing the hiring. Real events, real people, written like someone had actually been in the building that day.
Over the following six weeks, that same page was published 3-4 times per week. The average post earned roughly six and a half interactions, against a quarter of one under the previous approach. By posting less, they increased engagement roughly 20-fold.
One post alone, announcing the client’s 10/10 review score, brought in more engagement than the entire previous five and a half months combined.
Snapshot of individual post results before we started posting:
Snapshot of results after we starting posting:
The pattern underneath
None of this is really a social media story. It is a convenience story. The previous arrangement was chosen, reasonably, because it was the path of least resistance: outsourced, fixed cost, no client time required. Every one of those qualities is genuinely appealing. None of them had anything to do with whether the work actually reached anyone.
At Splice of Lime, we’re constantly up against companies selling services at a fraction of the cost of what we know is viable to deliver the desired results. The simple, cheap option feels like an easier decision than the right one. But the reality is, there’s a cost: a lack of progress that shows up as no new clients, unfilled beds, and unsold software licenses.
A simple test
Before choosing the easy option, it is worth asking two questions. What am I actually trying to achieve here, and does this option genuinely get me there, or does it just make the decision go away faster? The two are not always in conflict. But when they are, and one is quietly overriding the other, that is usually the moment something starts costing more than it appears to.
The service that costs less and does nothing is not a bargain. It is just a slower way of finding out what you actually needed to spend.
Choosing the right provider
We know you’re bombarded by organisations promising results, with little time and effort. At Splice of Lime we spend time with you and your business to take the stress away from you. But that time is essential to get results.
A short call can usually give you a greater understanding. We’re here to help.