With the myriad of marketing techniques and tools available to companies today, knowing where to prioritize your marketing activities can be daunting, especially when your goal is to get the most bang for your buck.
Yes, your budget for marketing can be turned into revenue.
Take Steve Jobs as an example.
In the mid-90s, Jobs took a company that was on the brink of extinction and flipped it over into the world’s most successful brand.
How? He was a genius marketer. He understood just how vital a role marketing plays in a business’s success.
In today’s online world, marketing is largely centered around lead generation:
Used wisely, you can leverage revenue-producing results from your market endeavors and increase your budget, changing the way your organization views marketing.
Steve Jobs said, “innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” So, let’s look at how you can start leading your budget into a revenue producing plan.
The marketing plan you design needs to work for everyone across the organization. It needs to be a solid plan that shows just how much revenue you expect to generate.
The essence of marketing is to create a valuable plan to pull and convert customers. You may know what it takes to do that, but do your CFO, CEO, and CMO get it?
They may hear whispers about the value of content marketing, or SEO, but are they really sold on the ideal of investing in lead generation?
As a professional, it’s your job to convince and convert your company’s leadership to buy into your plan.
Almost 71 percent of marketers spend between 10 to 50 percent of their budgets on marketing, according to a survey of 1,000 marketers.
Of course, this percentage will vary by industry and company.
For example, businesses in highly competitive industries, such as pharmaceuticals and consumer products, often spend between 20 and 50 percent of their net revenue on marketing efforts.
To calculate your company’s ideal budget for marketing:
Next, you need to determine how you will allocate your funding.
Knowing how much you have to spend on marketing is key, but even more critical is how you spend those funds.
This means having a solid plan that outlines the costs of how you are going to split the budget and achieve your marketing goals and ROI within a set timeframe.
If you’re a small business owner, for example, you should be investing in search engine optimization (SEO) and improving search engine rankings which will increase website traffic.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you should be using your budget to make minor website improvements and make use of online marketing tools that will help your business market itself, such as inbound marketing software and content marketing tools.
You may want to allocate some of your budgets to joining professional networks and attending industry-related events, too.
Take full advantage of the free platforms around to get your brand noticed, including:
If your target audience doesn’t network on LinkedIn, don’t spend money on a business account. If they are not hanging out at industry events, don’t spend money on a ticket. Don’t waste your budget on platforms you don’t need.
When you pay attention to your target audience and the needs your services or products fulfill, you can make smarter budget decisions.
Example of google analytics
Where do your customers turn to for information? You can set up goals in Google Analytics to measure the source and quantity of leads.
By comparing sources like organic traffic, social media channels, and paid campaigns, you can determine which sources generate the most sales and then fine tune your budget allocation to ensure you are spending where your customers are looking for information.
Any marketing campaign needs to start with narrow targeting, and that means understanding your target audience’s needs.
For instance, if you know your key demographic is active seniors who use digital media in the morning to catch up on the news, your strategy is going to differ than if your key audience is children of those seniors who are facing dementia. The latter are more likely to engage in digital media in the evening, after work.
Your website can be your greatest lead generator – provided you’re making it sing.
You need a sharp website before truly investing in marketing. Otherwise, you’re spending money to send people to a site that reflects poorly on your brand.
The point of online marketing is to get people to your site and convert them into paying customers.
Your website should be aesthetically and functionally pleasing, continually maintained, and the design should be refreshed every couple of years.
We cannot underestimate the power of social media when it comes to lead generation.
Build your loyal tribes, spend on social media advertising, and drive that traffic to your site.
Allocate budget to boost engagement and brand recognition through Facebook ads.
The overall goal of any marketing plan is to turn leads into sales and generate revenue. For example:
Divvying up a marketing budget isn’t particularly hard, but getting it right takes strategy, thought, and planning.
We know our target markets are mostly hanging out online these days, it’s a matter of making sure we dedicate budget to the right channels and platforms, don’t you think?
And, of course, making sure we don’t waste resources on unnecessary channels.
That being said, let us know which channels you have found return the most revenue for your marketing budget?