Planning Your Marketing Budget

Having a marketing budget is a smart business decision. A marketing budget is the guide to ensure that your business stays on track with estimated costs vs. actual costs for all marketing expenses. One of the most important reasons to have a marketing budget in place is to ensure all important actions are taken. Some of the standard new year changes are: web site development or redesign (ongoing maintenance), logo development or redesign, promotional branded products (giveaways), printed materials, search engine optimization, marketing personnel etc.

Remember that business planning is an element that deters many from success, so it is crucial to give an adequate amount of attention to your budget. Keep in mind that adding items to complete the process does no good for your business. Instead, spending an adequate amount of time, planning will give you a much better overall result.  To make sure to include, all marketing needs consider “how you plan to get the word out about your service/product. /service” and allocate a budget to that specific item.  A very  efficient way to do this is to create a marketing plan and set a step by step strategy. Another way to do this is to consider the source of all 2019 business. It is a good idea to first include all successful revenue streams that derived from 2019 marketing efforts. In addition, plan your budget strategy annually. By using this  plan you can include all steps and make modifications throughout the year, as needed.

You likely have heard the phrase “You have to spend money to make money.” This is a true statement with marketing.  However, since there are so many different platforms for email marketing, social media marketing, lead generation, online reputation management and so on, to support business growth, using caution is imperative.  Spending money on marketing is for sure, the right way to grow your business, and avoid missing opportunities. There is a method to the madness and proper targeting and testing will identify that.

What does a marketing budget include?

Below are some examples of items to include in your 2020 marketing budget.  For a more detailed sample in a downloadable, PDF form, request it here.  Your final marketing budget should include a combination of estimated and actual cost.  So, before taking an action, the estimated numbers will suffice, once the action is completed and the invoice is paid, you should update your budget.   Managing your marketing budget month over month will be helpful when tax filing season roles around, your accounting records will be in order.  An additional suggestion to keep track of the actual numbers vs estimated number is to change the font colors to identify the variation.

What top trending marketing should be included in 2020 budget?

Marketing automation is one of the biggest advantages that technology brings, in many cases driving a 14% increase in sales productivity. So when possible, automation should be considered for the below services.

• Email marketing
• Social media marketing
• Customer Relationship Management, (CRM)
• Content Marketing – Blog writing
• Search engine optimization
• Video marketing 

How much should a business spend on marketing annual?

The amount of money a business should budget for marketing varies greatly by industry, company size and business size.  The US Small Business Administration recommends a marketing budget to be between 2% and 10% of sales. Some companies spend up to 20% of net sales depending on product launches, competition, etc. The overall average is between 4% and 6%.