With the start of the New Year on the near horizon, it’s once again time for you to create a new annual marketing plan. In general, marketing plans have several key components, which normally include the following:
- Fiscal goals
- Discussion of positioning strategy
- Brand strategy
- Overview of your products or services
- Goals for each product or service you offer
- Sales plan
- Descriptions of future campaigns
- Dates to measure progress toward your goals
- Detailed budget
While a budget is the last thing on the list provided above, that doesn’t mean it’s the least important piece of your marketing plan. With many small businesses lacking a marketing plan and operating strictly from a budget, a strong case can be made in favor of your budget being the most critical thing you’ll need for marketing in the New Year.
How to Create a Marketing Budget
You need to take the responsibility of creating a marketing budget seriously. If you spend too little on your marketing, your message may never reach the members of your target audience. If you allocate too much money to marketing (as if that were possible), you may lack sufficient funds to support other critical aspects of your organization.
Examine Your Past Successes and Failures
Examining your past marketing successes and failures will help you figure out how much money you’ll need to dedicate to marketing as well as each marketing channel you use. If a previous campaign failed due to a lack of funds, the remedy may be as simple as allocating more funds to your marketing.
Look at how successful your marketing channels have been at achieving their assigned goals individually. If one experienced great success, figure out why and whether dedicating additional funds to it will generate even stronger results. If another channel fell short of the mark, determine the reasons why and identify what you can do to improve your marketing on that channel. Will dedicating more money to it help or is it simply not the right choice to reach your target audience?
Research Industry Trends and Your Competitors
You should research industry trends to ensure you’re dedicating enough money to the appropriate marketing channels. You also need to examine what your competitors are doing to promote their goods or services. If a given marketing tactic is working for your competition, make sure you allocate enough funds so you can afford to capitalize on it. If your competitors are faltering on certain channels, dedicate enough money to those marketing channels so you can make your business stand out.
There are plenty of online tools that make spying on your competitors a breeze. Amazon Alexa, SE Ranking, and InfiniGraph are just a few of the tools that are available to businesses that want to know what their competition is up to.
Rely on Our Budget Marketing Services
If you’re struggling to create a marketing budget, stop. We offer budget marketing services in the form of managed marketing services that have a static fee. Our managed marketing services are scalable, affordable and highly effective. And the great thing is – you’ll know exactly how much you’ll need to budget for marketing the moment you select a package. Contact DB Marcom to learn more today.
