According to the June 2020 CMO Survey, firm budgets and revenues have dropped in light of the challenges brought by COVID-19. Interestingly, however, the marketing budget for small business has increased likely for purposes of retaining customers and maintaining brand awareness to adapt to the new normal.
These rapidly changing times call for more financial prudence. So whether you’re working within a limited or a sizable investment for your next marketing campaign, here are 5 marketing budget tips you can follow to maximize your resources.
1. Know Who You’re Targeting
Every marketing campaign needs to be built on a foundation made of solid target audience research. Otherwise, you’ll fall into the trap of wanting to target as many people as possible, as opposed to focusing only on who your product or service is for.
Remember that the goal here is to maximize your digital marketing budget allocation. While it may sound good to reach as many people as possible on a surface level, if your marketing message doesn’t resonate with them, they will end up ignoring your brand.
Working within a set budget is not the time to take on a shotgun approach. You need to be laser-focused on who you’re targeting and how you can customize your marketing message according to their customer profile.
2. Use Complementary Strategies
Instead of investing in two non-related strategies (e.g. influencer marketing and PPC), it will be better budget-wise if you choose complementary strategies.
Take, for instance, this marketing budget example for SEO. Optimizing your site for better search rankings can be augmented by publishing high-quality content. It then makes sense to also invest in content marketing, as these two tactics can work in synergy to improve your site visitors and conversions.
3. Repurpose Your Content
To continue from the point above, with complementary strategies, you’ll also be able to repurpose the content you’ll produce, making the entire process all the more budget-friendly.
A long-form blog content, for instance, doesn’t have to be exclusive to your website. You can turn part of it into a newsletter or a short Facebook post. You can also turn it into a webinar presentation for lead generation purposes, then upload the content on Slideshare. Since the article is already done, you only need to change a few things to fit other online marketing channels.
4. Invest in Cost-Effective Channels
It’s tempting to blast all your marketing material in all possible channels that your target audience will see, but this will realistically cost you more than what you probably budgeted for.
One of the most cost-effective marketing budget tips is social media marketing. All major platforms are free to use, apart from ads and sponsored content. You can even repurpose some of your website articles and turn them into shorter versions for social media.
This is also why knowing your audience is crucial. If your market is on Facebook or Twitter 80% of the time, focus your efforts on these channels where the chances of conversions are higher.
5. Be More Efficient With Your Design
In a cluttered market, any campaign requires effective design to improve conversion rates, especially seeing that the average marketing budget by industry only continues to increase. However, consistent delivery of great design can be challenging—and, in some cases, more expensive. The good news is that outsourcing your design process to experts can help you be more efficient as it brings the following benefits:
- Cost advantages — You’ll have lower overhead costs compared to having an in-house team which requires their own equipment, salaries, and benefits.
- Faster turnaround — Instead of coming up with a design process from scratch and making sure it runs smoothly, outsourcing it can fast-track the deliverables since you’re already working with people who already know what they’re doing.
- Access experts with years of collective experience — You can choose to work with a design agency that already has a team of experts, removing the need for a long recruitment or training process on your end.
With an on-demand design team like ours at Design Force, you’ll be able to get all these benefits and more. You’ll have a dedicated team of world-class designers on-demand, meaning you can scale as needed and we’ll be there with you every step of the way. We can take these time-consuming design tasks off your plate, so you can focus on core work that accelerates your brand further.
Managing Your Marketing Budget Plan Well
Your marketing efforts bleed to most areas of your business, as successful campaigns move the revenue needle. Investing more in marketing without knowing how to put it to proper use will only result in low returns. This makes budget optimization all the more critical. Follow the marketing budget tips we outlined above for a high-return marketing approach.
And if part of your upcoming marketing strategies includes any form of design—from revamping your site to branding to assets design—contact us today and a member of our team will reach out to you within 24 hours.
