Budget is the most critical element to any marketing campaign
The first step in creating a marketing budget is to get a handle on your revenue information and your disposable income average. Your financial allowances (or restraints) will determine the shape and scope of your campaign. How much of those funds should be allocated to marketing will depend, in part, on whether your company is new on the scene with rosy red books or sitting in the black after several years of steady progress. Your goals and benchmarks will frame your strategy. And the platforms of choice will be directed by the trends and wants of your target demographics.
What is your priority? Only by setting your business’s hierarchy of priorities can money be allocated to the appropriate outlets in the necessary amounts. For example, looking to increase your clientele? Take money out of your training budget and move it into the fund for advertising. Trying to attract a younger market? Move more money into Social Media spending by taking from telemarketing.
Forbes.com highlights 3 factors in determining how to spend your marketing money:
- 1. Budget size
- 2. Past experience
- 3. Choosing the best medium for reaching your target audience
Budget Size
As in life, the amount of money you have to spend will, in part, determine how flashy a vehicle you can buy. Businesses with small marketing budgets will likely buy their vehicle from the print ad/online ad/email/social media marketing lots. Companies with more marketing funds can easily trade up to TV spots and radio advertising. Sometimes a well-timed ad in a more expensive medium – like spots during the Grey Cup – is an insightful way to get the best return on your dollar. Your budget, however large or small, can always be spread out strategically to cover the most ground effectively. Email and Social Media, for example, are affordable marketing vehicles. Marketing strategies that incorporated both mediums into a single campaign, like adding social media buttons to advertising emails, have been shown to increase click through rates by 158%.
Past Experience
Just because you have money to spend, however, does not mean you have to bypass more affordable means of marketing. If your business has run successful campaigns in the past through cheaper mediums, trying to capitalize on an already vetted platform is a prudent move. Pay attention to the experiences of competitors and authorities in your industry to save money by learning from other companies’ outcomes.
Optimal Medium
By learning what campaigns have been successful in your industry, you can determine which platforms are best for interacting with your target audience. Personalizing strategies based on demographic/medium considerations will help you budget accordingly for optimal results. It’s important to be aware of the marketing trends and ways in which you can breath new life into old but still useful platforms.
Budgeting for a Marketing Agency will result in a bigger budget.
All smart marketing campaigns focus on Branding and Advertising. They test the organic results of affordable mediums like Print, Websites, and Social Media by creating Content and Events to attract new consumers at very little cost. Such soft-run trials act as a litmus test for determining which strategies are effective enough for dedicated paid advertising. It is difficult to analyse and work with these results, however, if marketing is not your profession.
If you want to achieve maximum campaign potential, partnering with a Marketing Agency is invaluable. Marketing is meant to bring attention to your company, and the professionals have a much better handle on how to make that happen for your business. There is endless competition in your industry and in the marketing sphere. Partnering with an agency allows you to focus attention on your business’s expertise, while knowing your marketing strategies are also being handled with expertise.
Follow the budget money.
Whenever there is room in a budget, a multi-faceted approach earns the best rewards. CM2 Media covers all the avenues to tailor your marketing to your needs and your demographics wants: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Google+, Yelp, Bing, Yahoo!, Vine, Vimeo, Myspace, Disqus, Tumblr, Blogger, Vox, Xanga, Snapchat, Blab, Hi5, Friendster, Periscope, Ning, Flikr, SlideShare, Hootsuite, Quora, print ads, flyers, magazine spots, billboards, radio and television commercials, direct mail, email, trade shows, contests, events, offers, coupons, websites, store fronts, and overall business growth strategies. Whether your company works Business to Customer (B2C) or Business to Business (B2B), whether your focus is local or on the market abroad, there are tested methods, creative solutions, and a world full of experience from which to make your money (and your business) grow.
Here is the catch, we at CM2 Media have learned through experience that arriving at your business’s budget number is one of the most important aspects of any campaign. Resist the urge to hold back funds that can be used to market your company. The most effective marketers allocate 37% of their net income to a campaign budget, on average, whereas the least effective marketers allocate 16%. Trust us with your maximum number to start, and we can show you how that budget – whatever the dollar amount – can have the most versatility and the biggest impact on your business’s bottom line.