6 Tips for Establishing a Marketing Budget

When it comes to establishing a marketing budget for your business, there are multiple things that you need to consider. It’s important that you think, in depth, about the size of your budget in order to get the most out of the marketing services you’ll be receiving. The amount you will need will vary depending on the service you require. 

Hosting a website will not require a budget as big as the one needed to create a whole new website, for example. With so many variants at play when it comes to marketing budgets, it’s paramount that you find an amount that works for you, financially. In order to make sure that you’re not overspending or underspending, here are six tips for establishing a marketing budget that is worth your while and will provide a good return on investment (ROI).

1. Understand your target audience

In order to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your marketing budget, you first need to know your target audience. There are a few ways in which you can do this. The most popular and effective method of achieving information on demographics is to use Google Analytics. This will help you to see where in the world they’re based, their age and their gender. 

There are other tools you can use that will pinpoint more in-depth knowledge about those who visit your site, but that basic information is all you’ll need to move forward on a solid marketing budget. On top of that, businesses might also find it useful to develop customer personas. 

This is where you sit down and develop some functional customers that fit in with the information gathered from your analytical research, alongside who you think your target audience should be. If you’re not sure about how to create a customer persona, then take a look at one of our latest articles here. 

By knowing who your target audience is, you know who it is you’re wanting to aim your marketing at. This ensures that the relevant people are being reached and your marketing budget isn’t being wasted in the process. A marketing agency will need to know who your target audience is in more detail, and this is where that information from you will come in handy. In addition, it also makes for a more bespoke, tailor-made service.

2. Define a business strategy

Marketing should be viewed as a tool that’s designed to help you reach your business goals. It’s not a magic wand and it’s not an overnight success story. However, you will start to see great results in time. If your marketing strategies and goals aren’t clear, then it can muddy the waters when it comes to developing a marketing strategy for your business to benefit from. The more clean-cut your goals are, the better. 

Think about what you want to get out of your marketing budget. What are you wanting to achieve from a marketing perspective? Do you want more visitors to your website? Do you want to increase your sales? Do you want more footfall in your shop? Although the aforementioned might sound like one in the same thing, they’re all very different and they all require a different level of marketing and expertise. 

For example, PPC can achieve something that SEO methods might not, and vice-a-versa. But then content writing can help in a way that SEO can’t, and so and so forth. This is why it’s imperative that your marketing agency knows what your goals are, and this needs to be established before a marketing budget can be determined. 

3. Understand your competition

Understanding your competition before determining a marketing budget is a key step in the process. This is to give you some reassurance that you’re heading in the right direction, but it also enables you to go above and beyond that of your competitors, especially if you know what their marketing has done for them. 

This is something to discuss in more detail with your marketing agency. There’s a fine line between competing with a competitor and copying them, which is something you don’t want to do. A marketing agency, such as here at Kumo, will be able to guide and advise you on what’s best moving forward, from a competitive perspective, in order not to blur the lines between copying and competing.

4. Choose your marketing channels

Marketing might sound like a whole process, and it is when all departments come together at the end to deliver the results, but marketing is actually made up of lots of different things. SEO specialists, PPC professionals, copywriters, graphic designers, website developers and more will come together and form a team that will provide you with the results you need. 

However, there are marketing channels within all of that which you need to consider. Marketing is a very complex operation and there are a variety of channels and avenues that businesses might want to go down that better suits them. Marketing channels can include the following:

• Digital marketing – this includes social media, online content, automated email marketing, online advertising (PPC) and SEO techniques
• Inbound marketing – this overlaps with digital marketing as it requires the following in order to be effective: SEO, blog posts and articles, YouTube videos, podcasts and even e-books
• Outbound marketing – although more difficult to track and monitor, outbound marketing most often involves email marketing alone. However, it can also include: TV and radio adverts, direct mail, press releases, trade shows, influencer marketing and promotional products and reviews
• Brand awareness campaigns – these are designed to overlap with other channels and can include things like: social media marketing, content marketing, public relations, video marketing, advertising and influencer marketing

5. Measure how effective your spending is/will be

This is the part of establishing a marketing budget where you’ll need to be talking to marketing agencies for quotes. You should discuss what you want to happen, what your goals are and what you’re wanting to achieve from taking up marketing for your business. The marketing agency should then send a proposal with a quote attached for the work needed. 

Once you’ve received this, you should then think carefully about whether or not it’ll be worth your time and money. Will you see a good ROI or could you see the same results with a smaller budget? It can be difficult to measure how effective your spending will be, but there’s also an opportunity to test the waters first. Perhaps start off with a smaller budget and see where to go from there. 

There will always be the option to both increase and decrease your marketing budget as and when needed. For example, some businesses will increase their marketing budget during peak times, such as Christmas or the Black Friday sales. However, their marketing spending might reduce during times that are slower, such as in the month of January. It’s entirely up to you, making marketing a flexible road to go down.

6. Identify your marketing goals

We’ve already touched on this point, but this is the part of the process where you work out what it is you’re wanting to get out of your new marketing venture.What do you want to achieve? You have to keep in mind, however, that the desired results might not come apparent for weeks, or even months, after the marketing agency has started their work. Google algorithms are complicated to navigate, especially seeing as they change periodically throughout the year. Marketers are constantly trying to keep up with the times, so give them the space and time needed to get the job done and to achieve excellent results.

If you’re looking for a digital marketing agency to help you to achieve your goals, then look no further than Kumo. We have over two decades of experience in the industry, propelling businesses into the spotlight and setting them apart from their competitors. With content writers, SEO specialists, PPC professionals and website designers, to name just a few services and experts, at the helm of our operations, you can rest assured that you’ll be in excellent hands. For further information, get in touch with a member of our friendly team today – we’re always happy to hear from you.