Essential Things to Factor into Your Marketing Budget

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There are many activities that can go into marketing a business. When you’re creating a marketing budget for your company, you’ll need to think about the kinds of activities that you will be carrying out to promote your business. As well as having an overall marketing budget, you have to consider how much you’ll be spending on different types of marketing, from SEO to print marketing. Of course, you won’t be using every marketing method available, but you do need to think about those that will be most useful to your business. Which marketing techniques and strategies do you already use, or what are you planning to use in the future?

 

Here are just some of the things that you should be considering when you create a marketing budget.

 

Market and Consumer Research

 

Before you even consider the promotional activities that you carry out, you have to think about the other things that are necessary for good marketing. Market and consumer research are essential if you want to get to know your audience and how they respond to advertising. Whether you carry out your own first-hand research or you look for existing studies and resources that can help you, you have to take these costs into account.

Digital Marketing

 

Digital marketing has grown exponentially in the last couple of decades. It’s now a key way to promote a business, especially for small businesses that might find more traditional marketing methods too expensive. There are many different techniques and strategies that can be employed in digital marketing, so you might need to break down your digital marketing budget into a variety of categories. Here are a few of the activities that you should consider for your budget.

 

Website costs

 

Having a website is vital in today’s market, and a website comes with a variety of costs. The first thing to consider is hosting, domain, and maintenance costs, which will keep your website running. You’ll have to factor in website design and development, including both the initial cost of building your website and any ongoing costs to keep it updated and add new content. Your website is the digital face of your company, so you need to keep it running.

 

Search engine optimization

 

Once you have a website, SEO should be a focus of your digital marketing. It’s all about getting your site and your brand seen in search engines, which requires skill and plenty of time. If you’re planning to outsource your SEO (or already do), you need to check SEO pricing to make sure you’re paying a reasonable amount for the services that you receive. SEO can be a cost-effective way to promote your site, but it’s an ongoing activity.

PPC ads

 

In addition to SEO, you might invest in some pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns too. This might include promoting ads in search engine results, such as with Google Ads, as well as getting your ads seen on social media or third-party websites. PPC ads can be cost-effective if you know what you’re doing, but it’s important to get a realistic idea of how much you may need to spend to achieve your goals.

 

Content creation

 

Content marketing is a discipline that can intersect other types of digital marketing. The content that you produce might be shared on social media, hosted on your website, or emailed to the people on your mailing list. The cost of creating good content, whether it’s outsourced or carried out in-house, should not be underestimated. Make sure you take a close look at what you’re spending on content marketing or research what you could be spending when creating a budget.

 

Social media

 

Social media marketing is another type of digital marketing that has grown rapidly over the last few years. It involves both organic marketing and the use of social media advertising networks, such as Facebook Ads. Social media can be used as a marketing channel and also somewhere to provide customer service and build a community, but it can be hard to master. It can also be difficult to calculate costs for social media marketing, as well as ROI.

Email marketing

 

Email marketing has been around for a while. Despite the growth of other digital marketing methods, it’s still around and can still be very useful. Various things can go into email marketing, from building a mailing list to creating email content. All of these elements need to be taken into account when calculating email marketing costs, in addition to the cost of any tools used to develop campaigns and track campaign performance.

 

Offline Marketing

 

In addition to digital marketing, there are various promotional activities that you might conduct offline. Even small businesses can find that some of these methods are useful for promoting their brand, from direct mail to hosting events. Offline marketing methods can often be more expensive compared to digital marketing, but they have their benefits too. You can find that some of them have an excellent ROI and are great for helping with your marketing goals.

 

Events

 

Event marketing can take many forms for businesses. You might host your own events or participate in existing events in several ways. Each event requires its own budget, with all of the necessary expenses taken into account. Putting on your own event can be fairly costly, but it can also be a high-profile way of promoting your business. If you want to get involved in events, do plenty of research to understand the costs.

 

Direct mail

 

Many businesses find that direct mail is still a useful marketing method. It can be used to send out flyers and leaflets, brochures, restaurant menus, special offers, updates on new products, and various other things. It can also be surprisingly cost-effective and has some benefits over digital marketing. Direct mail campaigns involve costs such as design, printing, mail costs, and more that need to be considered when planning a campaign.

 

PR costs

 

Public relations can involve both online and offline activities. It can involve a range of activities and expenses, whether you have your own PR team or you decide to outsource it. For many businesses, particularly small businesses, outsourcing PR is the smart choice in terms of saving money and sticking to a budget. Costs can vary, but retainers for PR agencies can start at around $1,500 to $2,000 in the US.

 

Telemarketing

 

Telemarketing is still used by many companies to sell their products and services. Some businesses may choose to outsource their telemarketing to existing call centers, while others build their own phone sales teams to achieve their goals. In addition to the costs of the equipment and salespeople, telemarketing campaigns also need to be developed and monitored, so these expenses need to be considered too. Telemarketing is still very effective when done right, and can be cost-effective too.

 

Traditional media marketing (TV, radio, print)

 

Traditional marketing methods such as TV and radio ads, as well as print marketing, might seem outdated to some people. However, they can still be great ways to advertise a business if used in the right way. For example, selecting the right publications for print advertising can make a big difference to the ROI. Small businesses might steer away from this type of advertising if they are on a tight budget, but they can be good to tap into as your business grows.

 

Create an accurate marketing budget by being thorough and taking all of your marketing costs into account. You might cover a broad range of marketing activities to promote your business.