When you own a small business, you likely don’t have a lot of money to spend on frivolous things. And while some small business owners might not think that marketing is a main priority for their business at such an early stage, the fact of the matter is that your business will have a hard time growing if you’re not putting any time, money, or effort toward marketing.
So to help you know how to successfully allocate the right amount of money for marketing purposes, here are three tips for setting a budget for marketing your small business.
Don’t Just Give Marketing Your Leftovers
For businesses that don’t have a lot of money to begin with, you might be tempted not to actually budget any money for marketing and simply see what you have leftover after paying all your expenses. But according to Michael Evans, a contributor to Forbes.com, this is not a good strategy.
If you don’t actually plan for some of your money to go toward marketing, you’ll find another way to spend it on other aspects of your business. And while there are a lot of areas of your business that should be considered a priority and should be given a portion of your funds, it’s a mistake to think that marketing isn’t one of these areas.
Know What To Budget For
When making your marketing budget, you’ve got to account for all areas of marketing that you’re going to be paying money for. For some businesses, all the nitty-gritty details might be forgotten while only thinking of the big things like advertising money.
According to Megan Conley, a contributor to HubSpot.com, you also need to account for things like software, freelancers, and more when thinking about your marketing budget. If you’ve never budgeted for these things before, you might want to make sure your budget is flexible enough for you to have a little wiggle-room while you figure out just how much money you’ll need for these line items.
Achieve Your Goals By Working Backwards
The point of marketing is to help you achieve your business goals. To do this, you need to allocate the right amount of money so that your business goals will actually be achievable.
One way to do this, according to Chris Scott, a contributor to Intuit QuickBooks, is to work backwards. What this means is that you figure out what your goal is and what you’ll need to do or have to achieve. Once you have this information, you’ll need to figure out exactly what it will cost you to achieve that goal, like what your cost per acquisition is. This can help you know how much money you should put toward your marketing budget.
If you’re needing help figuring out how to create a marketing budget for your small business, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you do just that.
