3 Practical Tips to Make the Most of Your Marketing Budget

As your company makes plans for the 2019 business year, an integral aspect in the process is determining an appropriate marketing budget. Although budget planning can be tedious, with appropriate forethought and thoughtful consideration of your goals—your budget will be easier to prepare.

Here are a few tips to make your marketing planning and budget more strategic and potentially more effective:

1. Take a Step Back, Review and Reflect

The end of the year is an excellent time to review the previous year’s successes and failures as well as opportunities you didn’t have resources to capitalize on. As a team, take this into consideration as you evaluate your marketing goals and vision for the next year. Whether it’s increasing sales, building brand awareness or targeting new customers, it’s important to have a clear understanding of where you want to go—and where you’ve been. This will help effectively allocate funds for the next budget year.

2. Marketing Is an Investment

Marketing is an investment, not just an expense. The benefits of marketing are clear, from increasing brand visibility, developing relationships with key constituencies, improving brand awareness and trust, to building authority and credibility and of course, generating sales. Just as employees and technology are investments which further enhance your business, so is marketing. Investing in strategic, well-planned marketing will move you toward meeting your stated goals.

3. Marketing Requires a Strategy

A strong strategy is key in developing your marketing budget. Having a deliberate plan will ensure your budget is spent appropriately and wisely. The strategy implemented and percent of revenue allocated to marketing will vary across business types. Generally speaking, research shows that 6 percent to 12 percent of a company’s annual revenue is typically allocated to marketing. But, this model is not one-size-fits-all. Budgets depend on how well known and established your company is, how much market share you own, the value of your brand in the eyes of the consumer, how competitive your market is and what exactly you are trying to accomplish.

Brand competition is fierce and companies will continue to invest in marketing as an avenue to differentiation. Well-strategized marketing budgets, with both the past and future considered, are helpful and necessary to expand awareness of your product or service, break through the clutter and remain distinguished from the competition.