Developing a Marketing Plan Budget is just the first Step
Creating a marketing budget is a crucial aspect of any business operation. But managing your budget, is what truly sets a marketing department apart, and drives long-term success.
Marketing budgets matter because they help you allocate resources to various tactics outlined in your strategic plan, but they also ensure that your marketing efforts align with your business goals. Budgets help you process questions like “does that spend make sense?”, or “will that spend making achieving our goals more of a reality?”.
As important as they are, marketing plan budgets can be challenging to create, especially for those new to the world of advertising and media buying. And managing that budget can be even more challenging.
But don’t worry. If you find yourself overwhelmed just thinking about creating a budget for your digital marketing plan, or you are already knee deep in the process, this article provides a step-by-step guide on how to best navigate it. Everything from when to start, how to forecast, pitfalls to avoid, and tracking your investments and documenting the results.
When to Start creating a marketing Plan budget
If you are a new business, the best time to start developing your marketing budget is during the business planning phase. New businesses need awareness, and marketing plays a key role in making that a possibility. So any great business plan will consider the importance of marketing and advertising your new service or product offering.
Established businesses typically develop new marketing budgets quarterly or annually. These budgets are meant to encompass all the projects your team plans to undertake in a designated amount of time.
If you are a new or established business owner and neglected your marketing budget, remember it's never too late to start.
The process doesn’t have to be difficult, here is a simple approach you can take…
Simple Steps to Developing Your Marketing Plan Budget
Identify Your Marketing Goals: Your marketing goals could be short-term (like reducing website bounce rate or increasing social media followers) or long-term (like improving search engine rankings or developing a marketing automation flow).
Understand Your Target Audience: Create buyer personas, which are fictional representations of your ideal customers. Use data from surveys, interviews, and analytics to inform these personas.
Understand Your Market and Competition: Conduct market research to understand your customers' demographics, needs, and external factors that could affect them. Also, research your competition to understand their marketing strategies and budgets.
Define You Strategy and Marketing Tactics: Your strategy is “how” you intend to win at achieving your defined goals. This could include leading with great pricing, unique offerings, or special partnerships. While your strategy may change, it should help determine the tactics you deploy, which in turn should help you narrow down what and where to budget for expenditures.
Choose Your Marketing Channels: Select the marketing channels that your buyer personas are most likely to engage with, and your strategy values. These could include digital marketing, inbound marketing, outbound marketing, and brand awareness campaigns. Consider what channels your competition uses, what the investment for a channels or tactics is like on average, and what the estimated return looks like.
Create a Draft Budget: Put something on paper. Your first draft will give you a better understanding of the bigger picture, and most importantly opportunity to refine it. Make adjustments, and remember the budget is a guide, with the goal of helping you make better decisions.
Managing Your Marketing Plan Budget
It’s important to remember that your marketing plan is a tool you can utilize to drive business growth. Understanding the finances is a key part of any great plan. And spending time to develop, and manage that plan should never be seen as a waste of time.
So, assuming you’ve developed your budget, (And if you haven’t but need help, remember you can always ask us) the next step is to manage it effectively. This involves tracking your marketing budget, measuring its success, and making necessary adjustments.
You can use tools like Microsoft Excel or various expense-tracking apps and software applications to help with this. Whichever tool you choose, try to keep the process manageable, especially if you are just starting out. Some tools and options can be overwhelming and you may lose interest in using them.
Which leads us too…
Common Marketing Budget Pitfalls to Avoid
Underfunding Effective Methods: Companies often drive funding to their longtime favorite processes, even when a newer marketing channel proves effective.
Not Correcting Bad Data: Bad data can lead to less effective marketing overall. Go through your analytics and remove any inconsistencies or outliers before they impact your budget.
Neglecting Current Customers: Adding new customers often costs more than it does to keep your current ones. Focus on retaining these people for a larger and more consistent profit boost.
Relying Solely on the Previous Year's Marketing Budget: The market changes year to year as consumer priorities shift, so a marketing budget that worked one year will likely be less effective the next.
In conclusion, developing and managing a marketing plan budget is a continuous process that requires regular review and adjustment. By following these steps and avoiding common pitfalls, you can create a marketing budget that not only aligns with your business goals but also delivers a high return on investment.
If you're looking for professional assistance in creating a marketing plan, complete with a detailed assessment of your possible financial commitment, consider reaching out to us, Archer ATR, a Rochester, NY based marketing firm. We offer a wide range of services designed to help businesses navigate sales and marketing challenges effectively.
Contact us to learn more about how our expertise can help you maximize your marketing ROI and drive your business forward. Don't wait, take control of your budget today with Archer ATR.
