A recent survey from Gartner reveals that marketing budgets are up to 9.5% of a business’s overall revenue. This may seem like an aggressive number, but ideally, your marketing budget should correlate directly to your marketing strategy.
When you determine your goals, you can decide how much you should spend. Here is what you should consider when crunching the numbers.
Consider Your Digital Marketing Strategy
First, you must consider all costs to arrive at a specific dollar amount. The budget should cover all marketing tactics from demonstrations, promotions, print advertising, social media, public relations, free product samples, Google AdWords, PPC campaigns, etc. This means taking a close look at all facets of your business strategy.
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Start With the 5% Rule
Based on feedback from successful organizations and previous marketing experience, spending between two to five percent of your sales revenue is a good rule of thumb. While it may not seem like a generous marketing budget, if you break down the numbers, it’s legitimate.
Most of your ongoing marketing tactics with 5% of sales revenue should be covered. This should apply to most years. However, it does not need to dictate every year.
Especially in the beginning, when you ramp up brand awareness, you may need to spend more on your marketing budget. The day-to-day marketing strategy may require more of an investment. You may also have extra expenses from setting up, such as building a website and buying software.
Follow Your Marketing ROI
When you want to make money, you must spend money too. While five percent is a good starting point, if you want to grow quickly, you may need to consider a bigger budget, like ten percent.
Further, you may need to increase your marketing budget if you sell multiple products or services. There are many excellent marketing tips to sell more than one line simultaneously, but it will likely cost more.
Your tenure in the market also plays a factor in spending. One percent of sales revenue for a well-established brand can make an adequate marketing budget. However, if a solid brand launches a new service or product line, this is an excellent time to boost your budget.
Selecting a Marketing Budget
While a long-time rule has been to set aside five percent of sales revenue for your marketing budget, this is simply a guideline. An accurate budget should be decided upon when considering how many lines you sell, how long your brand has been on the market, and how quickly you wish to grow.
Bringing all these factors to the table will make what could be a complex decision much more straightforward.
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