Marketing spend - making your budget work

As a small business it is essential that we use our marketing budget wisely. With the landscape of marketing growing, it is hard to make the decision of where to spend to get the best return for your dollars.

When you have a limited budget it is important to be very focused. This all starts with a well thought out plan. My of the clients I see have diluted their budgets by trying to do too much. 

I break the marketing budget into a few sections. Let's say for example you have a $20K budget.

1. Foundational elements

The foundational elements are those that you need to run your marketing. This includes:

• Marketing Plan - this includes what you are going to do and why. To do this effectively there needs to be insights and research.
• Website - the platform, design and optimisation so it can be found by your ideal customers
• Your messaging - this involves working out your value proposition and crafting it in such a way so that it is compelling to your target audience
• Tools - these could include, CRM, forms, email software, social media set up and measurement tools like google analytics

2. Lead Generation

This can be broken down into two key camps:

• Inbound  - content generation like articles, blogs, white papers, case studies, checklists, webinars 
• Outbound - cold calls, adwords, advertising, PR, Call to Actions

With most clients I would split the budget into these two areas first. With lead generation I would focus on one campaign to one audience. Once there is attraction then this can be replicated.

Hubspot have some great ideas of how to spend your marketing budget in this article.

Here are some free marketing budget templates.