Marketing is extraordinarily important. You have to spend money to make money, but you want to be sure that what you’re spending is proportional to what you’re making. Businesses of varying sizes will be working with different volumes of funding – a small business can’t afford to spend as much as a massive corporation on advertising. What businesses need to do is create the perfect marketing budget for their specific needs, and no matter the size of the business, this budget needs to be spent efficiently.
You’ll want a little padding in your marketing budget. You don’t want to overspend, but you can’t afford to cut corners on important marketing channels. Some people use high interest saving accounts, while others prefer things like trading to maximize the potential of their marketing budgets.
Your marketing budget should never equate to you spending more than you stand to make – you still have overhead costs to account for, and you need to pay your people. Make sure you’re not cutting into crucial funding you need for other areas of the business.
Your marketing budget should be based on efficient spending. Some platforms and avenues charge a lot for minimal promise of return. Before you decide how much you’re going to spend, you need to decide where you’re going to spend. As far as social media goes, Facebook provides some of the most effective and economical marketing tools. If your business is small and doesn’t do a wealth of sales via eCommerce, focus your initial marketing budget at obtaining local customers. You can always expand your reach later on.
You’ll also want to focus on a solid content strategy. Great content practically moves itself, and this will reinforce every penny you spend on paid advertisement. Push your content in harmony with your marketing efforts – you’ll be casting a wider net without the bulk of extra spending.
You might not be able to come out swinging with the same amount of force as your competitors – especially if they’ve been rolling for decades and you’re relatively new to this. Look at where they’re spending and what they’re spending. If you can’t match them immediately, slowly scale to their level. Spend a little more on each successive campaign. If your campaigns are effective, you’ll grow at a steady pace and be able to afford that consistent growth.
You’re going to make errors. You’re going to spend money on marketing strategies that don’t really work out for you. This is not something to be terrified of. Everyone does it, and it becomes a valuable learning experience. It allows you the insight you need to form an effective process of elimination by seeing what’s working and what isn’t.
As your campaign progresses, modify it. If you’re not seeing a worthwhile return through certain marketing channels, stop spending there. Redirect that funding to the channels that are working, and double down where you’re already seeing the best results. The best way to do that is by experimenting with pay per click methods that will keep you from spending marketing money on results you’re not getting.
Few people are natural born marketers. Your budget will undoubtedly change with time. Just make sure that you’re never spending a penny more than what you can afford at any given moment. The budget could double by the time your next marketing campaign rolls around, and that’s the ideal sign that things are working out the way you need them to.
