Marketing has a large impact on your business and is far more complex than slapping up a few flyers. Pricing, planning, market research, product distribution, advertising, and promotion are all aspects of marketing that make up your business strategy. If you want to develop or stay competitive and relevant, you’ll need to think about your marketing budget and plan it out with your staff.
When it comes to marketing promotions, you must consider the entire project, from the creative brief through copywriting, photography, and graphic design.
As a general trend companies tend to spend around 5% of their earnings on marketing, but this percentage can fluctuate based on how you regularly attract clients and what you have planned.
What is marketing?
The most natural way to approach marketing is to consider it as a form of pre-sales. Many people believe it floats around on a creative cloud, occasionally firing off extremely expensive brochures. Marketing isn’t a frill or an afterthought; it’s there to help you set up your sales and run in tandem with your sales and finance teams.
Your entire team is engaged in marketing operations from the minute your business is up and running, whether you realise it or not. What are the forecast and pricing mechanisms in the finance department? It’s all about marketing. What are the plans for the sales staff to begin hard selling in Europe? It’s all about marketing. The manufacturing owner who is streamlining his operations and increasing the size of his workforce? It’s all about marketing.
The fundamental issue is that if you don’t realise it’s marketing, you don’t have a plan. And if you don’t have a strategy, your company model might be riddled with snags and unneeded hassles. But don’t worry, it can be fixed.
Step 1 – What marketing strategies do you need
So, you’ve scheduled a marketing brainstorming session with your team. What now? The first step is to give the creative process some structure. Avoid sessions when ideas are scribbled on the whiteboard but no action is taken.
How do you do it? Well, there are various finite marketing categories that should figure into your budgeting selections and be on your agenda – that’s because each category will help you anticipate your business accurately and understand what you need for each project.
These are a few things which we think should definitely be considered in your marketing strategy.
- market research
- product planning and development
- financial projections
- production and pricing objectives
- distribution methods
- advertising
- promotions and public relations
- expectations
Depending on what you do and what your goals are, each category will be more or less significant in your business, but all of them should be factored into your budget. The categories can also be utilised to create a step-by-step procedure for specific company undertakings, such as expanding into overseas markets or launching a new product.
Step 2 – Think about subcategories
The next stage is to think about each campaign or project you’re conducting and what you specifically require. Many various abilities are required for the more creative aspects of marketing, ranging from copywriting to design.
Let’s pretend you want to make a website. Do you already have content for the website? Do you have the right photographs or a creative brief in place? It’s great if you don’t have any of these items; nonetheless, you’ll need to set aside time and money for them.
And, especially if your marketing staff is small or non-existent, you’ll frequently need to hire outside expertise to meet your marketing objectives. If we look at just advertising, within advertising there are subcategories for example using Google ads, or Facebook ads. You need to consider all of these in your plan.
Step 3 – Try it out
Like the phrase says ‘If you never try, you’ll never know’
When you’ve put in all of the hard work, it’s time to put your strategy into action. Allow the team to utilise it as a starting point for all of their projects, and approach agencies with your marketing strategy papers in mind.
Make sure your marketing strategies change over time. Because company and objectives take on life of their own and shift with the financial winds, marketing budgets should not be trapped in the mud. That isn’t to say that if you budgeted £20,000 for market research and £10,000 for website development, your team is free to spend £50,000. It just implies that every project must be adaptable.
If you’re concerned about expenditures, create a review culture. Having quarterly planning meetings with the sales and finance teams is one method to do this. You may then review marketing operations to see which ones succeeded and which ones didn’t, and adjust your budget appropriately.
Finally, you are the only one who can determine how much money you need to spend on each marketing area. However, taking the time to grasp your objectives and what each marketing action entails will help you comprehend all aspects of your initiatives and prevent you from raiding the budgetary chest for the final coins.
PS If you need some help, get in touch. We’re amazingly good at designing websites and we can also help with social media management, marketing, and digital strategy along with much more. Just get in touch
