Over 90% of businesses invest in marketing. But smaller organizations may not have the luxury of playing with massive budgets and having large teams. Then the question becomes, how can startups and small businesses better allocate their marketing dollars?

Start with a Strategic Business Plan

Strategy usually falls under the purview of the executive team. Human resources, finance, legal, and other departments also contribute to the company’s strategic direction. All of these groups can influence the marketing and sales budget.

Before budgeting and forecasting even begins, leadership needs to create a strategic business plan. Each of these roles should have their say in what they believe is a priority for the business and how their department can contribute to it.

These groups will define what the actual business goals are and break down the resources needed to meet them.

And it’s during this stage where any expenses and campaigns need to be justified. Teams will set realistic goals and prioritize them according to yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily initiatives. Most of the time, this is where key decision-makers also establish their business performance metrics.

Look at the Data

Analyze how well your email, digital, and social media campaigns have done over time. Evaluate what was and wasn’t successful.

Here are a few questions to keep in mind.

• Which campaigns led to conversions?
• What were the KPI measurements for our social media, email, etc., campaigns?
• How much did it cost to acquire new customers?

If your company isn’t seeing results in its marketing endeavors, your team may have to reevaluate. Maybe it’s time to retire the campaigns that no longer serve the business in favor of trying out new strategies.

There’s something to aiming high, but it’s best to play it safe when it comes to creating and maintaining your marketing budget. We don’t mean to be stingy with spending money. We’re talking about being realistic. Spend your time and effort on marketing that helps achieve your goals.

Update the Budget As Needed

What makes sense for your marketing and creative team to accomplish over the next few months to a year?

Digital marketing campaigns have a higher ROI for businesses because they are generally cheaper to execute. This benefits companies in the long run because unlike, traditional forms of advertising, it’s easier to expand the team as needed.

Leave room in the budget to bring in other resources to take advantage of new technologies or time-sensitive campaign launches.

Measure Your Marketing Efforts

How do you know how well your marketing is doing? Measure. As a marketer or small business owner, you’ll evaluate the success of your campaigns based on the KPI’s you’ve established.

Most startups and small businesses usually spend their money on social media, SEO, and their website. And when it comes to marketing, companies are investing more of their budget into automation software. It’s continuously proving as effective in generating leads and running efficient campaigns.

The tools available to you now are plentiful.

Whether you’re measuring the reach of your campaigns using massive analytics tools like Hubspot, Marketo, or Semrush, you’ll need to have something in place to serve as a let your team know how your marketing campaigns are doing.

From there, it’s easier to estimate how much you’ll need to invest in your marketing moving forward.

Conclusion

Setting a budget for your business is more than putting aside a few dollars for a rainy day. Each one of those dollars needs to work towards building a better business through marketing.

You’ll want to create a strategy that centers around your business goals. Let it serve as a guide to determine which marketing resources you need to invest in.