Time and time again I get asked as a marketing professional how much money should my business spend on marketing? Well, when the guys at UpCoach asked me to contribute a guest post, I jumped at the chance of giving some insight into the allusive nature of marketing budgeting.
I am going to walk you through how much you should be spending on marketing and where that money should be going so that your business continues to grow.
… So let’s get started.
How much should my business spend on marketing?
This is a topic I’ve seen come up several times since working with Nick and Chris at UpCoach. Typically I have two schools of thought that both relate to how much revenue your business is currently generating.
If your business is new and you’re just getting started, then I typically recommend you start with a small budget of around $1,500 – $2,000 a month.
My reasoning for this is quite simple.
Any marketing agency that is any good, will typically charge you at least $100 an hour for their time.
So if that agency spends 8 hours working on your campaigns, it will cost you $800, and when you add on your actual ‘spend budget’ of say $800 (which is paid directly to Google), you’re at $1,800, and to be honest with you, this is still considered a tiny budget.
If you spend anything less than this, you’re not really going to make any headway.
… The second school of thought:
If you’re a bigger business and already generating significant revenue ($500k – $millions annually), my general rule of thumb is that you should be spending between 5% to 10% of your gross revenue on your marketing activities.
So, with those figures in mind…
What marketing tools should I be investing in?
To answer this question, we need to look at your 3, 6, & 12 month growth goals.
If you want to generate an immediate uplift in enquiries, sales, or phone calls, then the first channel I typically tell people to invest in is Google Adwords.
Within as little as one or two months, you should be generating enquiries, sales or calls from a properly set up Google Adwords Campaign.
Start with $1,000 and scale your success from there.
If you’re ok with waiting a while before the leads start to flow, then I would recommend you invest in a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign.
It’s worth noting that to see results from an SEO campaign, you will typically have to wait 6-12 months before you really start to see good traction.
So this is definitely a long play when it comes to marketing campaigns, but once you hit those top 3 ranking positions, your business will be well on its way.
Lastly, your business should have it’s own Facebook page with frequent posts being generated every 2-3 days.
These posts can be anything from blog articles, how-to-guides, competitions, customer testimonials, products for sale, or anything really that you’re audience is likely to engage with.
It’s important to note that I recommend you put a website link in each of these posts, that links back to different pages on your website.
The reason for doing so is two-fold. Firstly, so that people who engage with your brand end up on your website, and secondly, we consider this type of backlink a ‘social citation’.
Social citations help your overall SEO campaigns because Google rewards you for these posts.
So be sure that you’re posting on social media every few days!
———
With this knowledge in hand, you should be well on your way to begin investing in your next marketing campaign.
If you have any questions about this or any other business topic, please feel free to reach out to the UpCoach team who will be happy to help you.
Thanks,
Paul Warren.
www.insiteful.com.au
