Finally, you make the decision to invest in digital marketing services. You stop and think about how you can afford this. “

Without a marketing budget plan, you won’t know what to do.

All the information you need to plan a marketing budget.

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What’s a marketing budget?

A marketing budget is a document that shows how much money your company will spend on marketing over some time. This should include all marketing costs such as paid advertising, payroll costs, and website maintenance.

Why should I have a marketing budget?

Do you wonder why you need a marketing plan for your business? 

1. This will allow you to keep on the right financial track

A budget will help you ensure you’re financially sound when you begin to plan your marketing strategy. If you don’t have a budget, you could end up spending too much.

2. This allows you to put funds where they are needed

A marketing budget plan can help you decide how much you can spend on each strategy. 

3. This allows you to set benchmarks or goals.

It is important to establish realistic goals and benchmarks to help your business move forward. Setting a budget will allow you to set realistic expectations and determine how much revenue you need to succeed in your marketing campaigns.

4. This allows you to plan long-term.

To have greater control over your marketing budget and to create a long-term strategy, you can plan it. It will allow you to create a more consistent, efficient marketing strategy.

5. This is an investment in your business’ growth.

Marketing can seem like an additional expense for your business, but it isn’t. Marketing is an investment. It will help you grow and develop your business.

Learn how to make a marketing budget that will help your company maximize its potential.

How to plan a marketing budget

Now you know the importance of a marketing plan, let’s see how to make one. These six points are crucial to consider when creating a marketing budget.

1. Establish your sales cycle

Once you have established your marketing budget, it is time to create your marketing channel. This describes the journey that your audience takes to become paying clients. 

Four stages are typical for a sales funnel.

• Awareness: When your audience recognizes that they have a problem and starts to seek solutions.

• Consideration: Let your audience begin to think about the choices they have.

• Decision

• Action

Understanding your sales funnel helps you to identify areas where you may need a digital marketing strategy to help more people get in the funnel.

Take, for instance, the fact there are a lot of people at the consideration stage but not many at the decision stage. 

It may be necessary to invest more in strategies to bring leads from the consideration stage to the decision stage. 

Understanding the sales cycle will help you decide how much marketing budget to allocate.

Knowing your sales cycle will help you plan the best marketing strategies.

2. Know your outgoing costs

You need to determine your outside costs to prepare a marketing budget. 

• Operating expenses (creating, and shipping products)
• It is costly to hire staff
• Water and electricity costs for your business

You must consider these costs when creating your marketing budget. This baseline helps you calculate your return on investment (ROI).

Take, for example, that the production of your product cost $10. Now you know how much marketing you’re willing to spend so you can still make money with your product.

These strategies can help you maximize your company’s return on investment.

3. Identify your company’s goals

Every guide for creating a marketing budget will tell you that you need to know your company’s goals. Goals that are focused on

• More sales
• Leads
• More subscribers
• Brand Awareness is Key

When creating your goals, make sure they are precise and well-thought-out. This will not help you set a goal that you can achieve.

You can instead set a goal like “Increase sales 20% by year’s end.” This goal is simple to measure and gives your team something tangible to work towards. The number of sales that you desire and the timeframe in which it will be achieved are known.

Before you can properly plan a marketing budget, it is important to determine your business goals. This will help you choose the most effective marketing methods to achieve your business goals.

4. Understanding your market

Understanding your market will help you create an effective marketing budget. Understanding how your competitors compare to you will help you determine the best strategies to win.

To view the online performance of your competition, you’ll need to use competitor analysis. To check the online success of your online competitors, you can use competitor analysis.

This will help you determine which strategies are the most important to your success.

Social media monitoring tools can be used to monitor what your competitors are saying on social media.

5. Get an overview of the strategies that you’d like to use

Choosing your strategies is an important part of creating a Marketing Plan. There are many digital marketing choices.

• SEO Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing your website’s rank in search results. This will help drive organic traffic to your website.

• PPC Advertising: These paid advertisements allow you to reach more leads that are ready to convert.

• Use social media marketing to connect with your audience. Build relationships with leads and turn them into customers.

• Advertising – You can invest in social media advertising by creating engaging copy to target specific leads. 

• Email Market: Email marketing can be used to encourage leads to convert by sending them relevant content. You can also send reminders about abandoned carts and other messages.

• Content marketing: content marketing lets you share valuable information with your visitors and generate more leads. 

• Local SEO – Optimize your website for local keywords with local SEO. To drive more local traffic to your business, you can also claim your Google Business Profile Listing.

To plan a marketing budget you will need to identify the best strategies for your company. Now we can move on to the most important part of planning a marketing campaign.

6. Prices for research strategies

It is important to understand the costs of your campaign regardless of whether you hire a freelancer, or manage them yourself. 

• In-house

• Freelancers are those who specialize in one or more of the following strategies: If you hire a freelancer, you’ll typically pay per hour or job. If the freelancer is more experienced or uses software, prices may go up. This will be added to their rate.

• Hiring a Digital Marketing Company is a great way to get the right tools and people. Unless you’re working on a single project, a retainer fee will be charged by a digital marketing company.

If your business is busy, a digital marketing company can be a great choice. 

How much do professional digital marketing services cost? Here is an estimate of what you can expect to spend on digital marketing services.

• SEO: $500 – $20,000+ per month
• PPC – 5-20% off your monthly ad spend
• Content marketing: $2000 – $20,000 per month
• Social media marketing: $250-10,000 per month
• Email marketing: $300 – $2500 per month

Prices can vary depending on the services you need and your business. These are the prices you can expect to pay when you partner with a digital marketing agency.

This will allow you to create a marketing budget that’s both efficient and effective for your business.

Use our marketing budget calculator

Need help deciding how much budget to allocate to each channel? Enter your goals and get a breakdown of your marketing plan. 

You can adjust your goals at will. Call us or request an online quotation.

We can help your business create an online marketing strategy Download our Internet marketing calculator to design your marketing strategy.

How do you calculate your marketing budget?

This data-backed breakdown will allow you to determine the amount of your marketing budget. This will allow you to determine the budget your company should allocate for your marketing plan.

INDUSTRY	MARKETING BUDGET (% COMPANY REVENUE).
Communications media	10%
Construction and mining	3%
Consulting	21%
Packaged consumer goods	9%
Consumer services	6%
Education	3%
Energie	1%
Banking and Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate	8%
Healthcare	18%
Manufacturing	13%
Wholesale retail	14%
Technology	21%
Transport	6%

A business can look beyond the industry to consider its market age. For example:

• Age: Businesses between the ages of 1-5 and 10 should dedicate 12%-20% to marketing. Marketing should be a priority for businesses older than five years.

• Overall market: Businesses-to-business (B2B), should allocate 7% to 88% of their revenue for marketing, while businesses-to-consumer companies (B2C), should allocate 9% of their revenue toward marketing

Every company’s needs are different. Your business’s goals will determine how much you spend on marketing plans. 

Determine your target cost for acquiring a client and the number you want to reach with your marketing.

Add any fixed cost to these numbers.

Let’s assume that you have a $300 target cost per customer and that 200 customers are your goal. In this situation, your fixed costs would total $10,000.

• (300 x 200 + 10,000 = 70,000

For your customer acquisition goals to be met, you will need to allocate $70,000 for marketing. This information will allow you to determine the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and make suggestions for improvements.

Start preparing your marketing budget plan today

Kobe Digital will help you to create a marketing budget and find an agency. Kobe Digital is a long-standing expert in creating marketing budgets that work.

We are a Marketing Company that will help you choose strategies that suit your budget and deliver results to your business.

Contact us by phone or email to learn more.