Creating a marketing budget can be tough. Small business owners know that marketing is a crucial aspect of success, but determining the right amount to spend and what services to spend on can be difficult. The goal is always for marketing to provide a net gain, establishing new leads and driving conversions while increasing brand awareness. The key to having a successful marketing budget is creating a sustainable marketing plan.
Define your goals
Marketing is an investment. For it to be successful, a vision of what you want to achieve is necessary:
- Align your marketing goals with your business’s strategic goals. This will help you determine the amount of investment needed.
- Make sure the entire business’s vision is oriented towards the determined goal. Everyone needs to be aware of and on board with the direction the business would like to go.
- Start to create a formal strategy. Determine how much you would like to grow; this will help you to decide what spend is right for your business.
Set a budget
Deciding on a budget that aligns with your defined goals is an important step—a budget that doesn’t match a vision can lead to an unsuccessful marketing campaign:
- There’s no definitive right answer for how much to spend.
- Expert opinions vary depending on the industry and individual goals of a business, but anywhere from 1-10% of your gross revenue is a safe place to be.
- 1-3% spend is recommended for maintaining market position. 4% and higher serves a business that is looking to grow, with higher percentages applying to businesses that wish to expand more rapidly.
Create a plan
Once you have a set budget, deciding what works best for your specific business can be challenging. Marketing companies, such as LNP Media Group, offer affordable solutions and provide expertise to ensure that your marketing plan is a success:
- Identifying your target market is key to deciding what channels you will use. Once you know who you want to reach you can decide on which digital, print, or other methods you will use. Make sure to balance short-term lead conversion with long-term investment.
- Knowing your sales funnel is crucial to marketing success. Either extracting your own data or using data provided by a partner marketing company will make this process easier.
- Remember to treat marketing as an investment, not a cost. Tracking your ROI will help you develop more effective marketing campaigns over time.
Implement your plan
Once you’ve developed a plan, it’s time to implement it. A successful plan will incorporate multiple channels meant to target specific audiences, while planning for both short-term lead conversion and long-term expansion. Tracking your results will create knowledge for increasing effectiveness of future marketing campaigns, ensuring that you will get the most for your marketing dollars. LNP Media Group creates customized marketing plans for all sizes and types of businesses, helping you reach the consumers you need to grow your business. Contact our expert marketing team for more information, assistance, or to chat about what we offer.
LNP Media Group is committed to delivering exceptional experiences to our audiences, our customers, our vendors and our employees throughout Lancaster County and Central Pennsylvania. We provide value to our marketing and advertising partners by building effective and innovative solutions and by delivering exemplary customer experiences.
LNP Media Group is a division of Steinman Communications, one of the largest and most experienced communications companies in the Mid-Atlantic. Steinman Communications is an innovative, multi-channel communications company that delivers high quality news, information and entertainment to diverse audiences.