So you have started that long-time pending business endeavor or perhaps, you have expanded your operations. Either way, you need strategies to acquire customers and drive sales. Then, you stumble upon marketing and wish to employ the latest strategy. A thought clicks in your mind – “Can we afford this?”
Why do you need a marketing budget plan?
Without a thoughtful marketing budget plan, you cannot have a concrete answer.
Building a successful brand always includes a well-thought-out marketing plan. Whatever you make or whatever you sell, you need to market to get the word about your product or service out.
You need to know whom to market. For example, let’s say your company deals in products or services related to the older generation. Now, you know old people are not tech-savvy. Therefore, marketing on social media is not going to produce the results that you are expecting. Reaching them would take a different route than reaching tech-savvy generation.
Targeting effectively is a crucial part of your marketing plan. To ensure your marketing money is being spent well and driving sales, and for that to happen, you need a comprehensive marketing plan.
Now, you know how important a marketing budget plan is.
What should be included in a marketing budget plan?
First and foremost, an outline. A rough outline works at this point as you only need to know where you are headed to. Put down the marketing goals you wish to achieve and make sure you also put a date on them. This will be your go-to blueprint to check on how you are doing and how much time and money you have spent up to the point.
Then, you list out points concerning your target market or audience. How the competition is in that market and how you are going to approach customers in that market. You need to put down your Unique Selling Points (USPs) so you can differentiate yourself from your competition to drive the sales.
Priority of projects is something you need to settle on because not every project is going to contribute towards your growth. The amount of growth you achieve varies from project to project and hence, you need a rough idea of how much money you will allot to the type of project.
How to create a marketing budget plan?
Begin your marketing plan by understanding the purpose of this budget plan. Know the purpose this budget is going to serve. Which marketing team will be the best to execute this budget plan.
Here are five steps to creating your marketing budget plan
Understand buyer’s journey
Your customers will not directly become paying customers. Knowing their journey allows you how they are interacting with your brand’s marketing. This is where you can tweak your goals and budget to better reach your customers.
Some questions you are going to encounter while understanding the buyer’s journey are: What information will help them make a purchase? How many visits our website? How many customers are discovering our products?
Operational costs
When you are set out to market, you also need to consider how much it would cost in time and labor to deliver your messages? Also, are you going to ask your in-house team or do you need external help with marketing campaigns? If it is external help, how much would it cost to hire an agency or freelancers?
Look at your operational costs before commencing your marketing campaigns to avoid burning holes in your pocket.
A bunch of strategies
A critical part of your marketing budget plan is your strategies. One strategy might work for something, but this does not ensure that it will always work. Just like in the example mentioned afore.
Here are a few strategies you can use:
- SEO to boost your website ranking
- PPC ads to attract more customers
- SMM because half of the world is surfing on some social media platform
- Email marketing to nurture leads
- Content marketing to generate awareness
Extra charges
No matter how much you try to fit a campaign in a certain budget limit, there will always be some extra charges. They might be minor and you would think these charges are not so important to have a place on your marketing budget plan but think again.
These little, little sums suddenly appear huge at the end of the year review.
ROI
By measuring ROI, you are actively seeking what is working and what is not. This helps you to formulate your plan better for the next campaign.