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Guide to planning your marketing budget for 2023

Budgeting can be a headache for many marketing teams. This is to be expected; planning a marketing budget is a complex and time-consuming endeavor, and it’s understandable that marketers would feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the work. However, spending money on advertising doesn’t have to be a terrifying prospect. To help you prepare for 2023, we’ve consulted top digital marketing agencies NYC and prepared a thorough guide for planning your marketing budget. Think of it as a simple framework for developing a marketing plan that allows you to be innovative within your budgetary constraints and still achieve your company’s objectives. Now let’s get to work.

Planning your marketing budget – tips & tricks

To put it simply, your marketing budget is the sum of money you have set aside to carry out marketing initiatives over a given time frame. It is recommended that you spread your marketing budget across a variety of channels, including paid advertising (like Facebook advertisements or hiring a PPC agency NYC), email marketing, content production, brand awareness/thought leadership opportunities, trade exhibits, marketing events, and more.

Marketing team in a meeting room working on setting a realistic budget — Planning your marketing budget is not something you should do on your own but you should involve other teams.

Understanding how much money the marketing department has to spend on various marketing activities is impossible without a marketing budget. This will aid in determining which channels and campaigns are best suited for your business. Also, it will help you keep track of what was spent where giving you invaluable insights. Now let’s move on to expert tips that will help you with planning your marketing budget.

#1 Clarify your company’s goals and marketing approach.

A marketing budget is a tool for getting you where you want to go with your company. If you and your team aren’t on the same page regarding your organization’s long-term objectives, it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate your approach. Have a brainstorming session with your marketing team and determine your goals for the next few months together with a strategy for making them a reality.

For example, perhaps one of your goals is to fully re-brand. Thoroughly consider everything involved with this task and think about the possible costs involved such as hiring a web design company NYC. Therefore, you can’t establish a marketing budget if you don’t know where your business is headed. A sound company plan is essential for planning your marketing budget.

As part of your business strategy, you should also draft up a marketing plan. It ought to detail how marketing will bring you closer to your company’s objectives. Here you will outline who you are as a company, what you sell, who your ideal customer is, how they arrive at a buying decision, and what sets you apart from the competition.

#2 Account for your present marketing budget

The next step is to determine (in detail) what are currently spending your money on. It’s important to keep track of every penny you spend on advertising your company. Here are just some of the examples of what you should include:

ads (both digital and traditional)
your marketing staff (whether in-house if you have a marketing team or external such as New York City SEO expert you hired for particular marketing tasks)
virtual assets (for instance, your website, social media, content production, and similar)
events and promotional materials (such as trade shows, booths, brochures, business cards, signs, samples, and many more)
advertising strategies including presenting at events and obtaining product placement

Oftentimes, marketing spending is designated wrongly in budgeting because a lot of companies don’t categorize trade shows, sponsorships, and digital material as marketing. However, they most certainly are and should be on your list.

Person working on a laptop and looking at site metrics on Google Analytics — Useful tools such as Google Analytics can help you with planning your marketing budget.

Be sure to give a lot of specifics. There is a number of marketing budgeting tools that exist to assist you to monitor the efficacy of various promotional initiatives and allocating resources accordingly. Attribution software, such as Attentive.io or Google Analytics, and benchmarking tools, such as HubSpot’s Marketing Grader, can help you see how your marketing efforts compare to those of competitors. Make sure to take advantage of them (and don’t forget to factor in the costs when planning your marketing budget).

#3 Evaluate how well your money is being spent

Conversion rates, internet traffic data, and lead generation are just a few examples of metrics you can track to evaluate your investment. If you haven’t already, now is an ideal time to start tracking these metrics. It’s pretty simple – if you don’t keep tabs on these metrics, you won’t be able to figure out your ROI.

The metrics you choose should reflect your business’s KPIs. To market your brand, for instance, you may track website visitors, bounce rates, and the percentage of site visitors who become paying customers. You can even easily measure the trade show ROI. You can do this by comparing the number of orders or email leads you received at the show with the total cost of attending the show.

#4 Optimize your plan

You’ll be able to put together a workable marketing plan and budget with this data in hand. Therefore, evaluate your present spending on each item and consider if you need to adjust the amount to accommodate your expansion ambitions. Don’t forget to calculate the return on investment (ROI) of any option because it’s crucial.

Let’s say your goal is to boost sales by 20%. To do this, you might need to invest in a new website, expand your advertising budget, or add to your marketing team. So make sure to think of ways to achieve your business goals in the short term, as well as the long term.

Make sure to consult with the sales department and get their insights about where to best spend your money. To understand how your company stacks up to others in its field, you can compare your expenditures to the average for your industry. As a corollary, check in with customers on a frequent basis to get feedback about the quality, price, and overall value of your products and services.

To determine how much to spend on advertising, experts recommend using the 70-20-10 rule. Budget at least 70% of your resources into things that showed good results for your company, 20% into things with some promise of success but less certainty, and 10% into completely experimental endeavors.

#5 Don’t forget to follow up and offer advice

Once you finish planning your marketing budget, you should check in on it once a month to see how you’re doing in terms of your goals and actual expenditures. It’s essential you keep in close contact with the advertising and marketing departments as well. It’s simple – if you don’t actively steer your marketing strategy, it won’t achieve its objectives.

Marketing department having a meeting in a meeting room with huge glass windows — Set time aside each month to check how you’re doing in terms of your goals and what you’re actually spending.

When it comes to marketing, marketing professionals and agency partners often don’t have the assistance or knowledge they need to accomplish their work as successfully as possible. It is the responsibility of the business owner to provide overall strategic direction. The bottom line is that every hire must contribute in some way.

We hope our article gave you enough information and a confidence boost to start planning your marketing budget for 2023 even now. Good luck!