Developing a Marketing Budget
Most marketing professionals are familiar with some “magic numbers” used for marketing budget development. A real challenge is planning a marketing budget that is optimal for your specific marketing success.
If done incorrectly, you risk insufficiently funding an important goal, or over-funding a lower priority activity or deliverable.
The “Right” Marketing Budget
Developing a great budget involves a few steps:
- Extract the marketing objectives from the company’s business goals, and set the qualitative and quantitative targets and milestones for achieving those objectives.
- Figure out how to gauge your success (can’t measure it? – don’t do it!).
All done? Excellent! - Now, research and select the correct tools and platforms.
Hint – you’d best stay away from high-ticket item strategies like tradeshow-centric exposure if your annual budget for tradeshows is only $30K… - Break down the marketing activity to its core ingredients (PR/Analyst/Media relations, lead generation, positioning and branding, distribution, product marketing, Marcom, social media, tradeshows, etc.).
Done? Lovely! - All that’s left to do is fill in the budget numbers, priorities and timeline – and get to work.
Simple – right?
Uh, not exactly. Conflicting needs and complex considerations can make developing an executable plan overwhelming. No matter how well thought out your capital investment plan is (aka “Use of proceeds”), investors, boards and partners will always try to poke holes in your budget plan – after all, it’s their money you’re spending and they want maximum return.
This is where we come in.
The key is a methodical process, meticulous costs analysis, and the right tools for accurate breakdown and “orchestration” of budget items – ensuring effective use of funds and eliminating conflicts and duplications.
Using our time-tested process, we simplify and accelerate development of the right marketing budget for you.
