marketing-budget

How to Better Manage Your Marketing Budget This Year

The holidays are over, and you’ve had a chance to recover from all the parties and family time. Now that you’re back in the office, it’s time to get serious about how you’re going to manage your marketing budget in 2023. Whether you’re a small business owner or a large corporation, there’s never been more pressure on budgets than now. The good news is there are strategies we can all use to manage our money better so we can focus on the work that matters most: helping our customers and businesses succeed! 

How to Better Manage Your Marketing Budget 

Marketing budgeting is an ongoing process. 

While you may start with a finite amount to spend on marketing for the year, this figure should be revisited as your business needs change and grow. There are two primary factors to consider when determining how much money you’ll need: 

  • How much money do I have available? (your budget)
  • What are my goals? (how much can I afford to spend)

When it comes down to it, understanding what resources are available and having clarity on your goals will allow you to better manage your marketing budget. 

Determine Your Total Marketing Budget 

Before you begin to plan your marketing strategy and budget, it’s important to determine how much money you must spend. While some companies may be flush with cash, others face tighter budget constraints. Regardless of how much money is available for marketing, there are ways to make the most of what you have. 

To determine how much money you can allocate toward marketing: 

Use existing financial information (if available). If your company has already conducted its annual budgets or has other recent budgets in the office, this information can provide insight into where funding might come from in the future.  

Create a List of Platforms You’ll Use for Marketing 

Keeping a list of the platforms you plan to use for marketing is essential. For instance, if you have a Facebook page, then make sure it is on your list. If you plan to run paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram, be sure those are included. In addition to social media platforms, you can also include email newsletters and other digital marketing strategies. 

You may want to create a spreadsheet or other type of document where all these platforms are listed so that when it comes time for budgeting purposes in the future (as well as when evaluating how well each platform is performing), it will be easy for everyone involved in managing your social media presence—or any other digital strategy—to see what needs attention most urgently at any given time. 

Estimate the Cost and Potential ROI for Each Platform 

Understanding how much money you have to spend on different aspects of your strategy is critical. For example, if you don’t know how much it will cost to buy an ad on Facebook or YouTube, you won’t be able to make informed decisions about where best to allocate your budget across these platforms. 

Understand How Your Competitors Are Spending Their Marketing Budget 

Understanding what other companies are doing is key when deciding how much money you want to spend on each marketing platform as part of your overall strategy. You can use tools like SEMrush and SpyFu to learn about the top keywords that competitors use in their ads and landing pages and which platforms they’re advertising on most frequently. This way, when setting up your campaigns across these platforms based on competitor data, you’ll know what works best and why so that you can make data-driven decisions moving forward. 

Evaluate Your Current Strategy to See What’s Already Working 

The next step to setting a solid budget for marketing this year is to look at the results of your previous spending strategy. What does your data tell you about what worked and what didn’t? 

You can find this information by reviewing your social media analytics, email open rates, and website traffic reports.  

  • Did you have high engagement across all channels at one point in time? Check which posts got the most likes or shares on Facebook or replies on Twitter.
  • Do some of your social media followers seem more engaged than others? Look at the number of comments compared with likes or shares on each post.
  • Are people visiting certain pages more often than others? If so, you should figure out why.

Allocate Your Budget 

The best way to figure out how much you should spend on each platform is by determining their value and then dividing that by their total cost. For example, if Facebook ads drive 90% of your sales and only cost $10 per month, it makes sense to spend most of your budget there. However, if you have some channels that are working well but generating fewer leads than others, it may make sense to focus more on those channels so they can perform better. 

  • Figure out how much money you have available for digital marketing campaigns
  • Prioritize the platforms where you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck

Agency Partner Interactive 

While budgeting expenses for the year can be challenging for small businesses to enterprise corporations, knowing where to put your investment is crucial to realizing a full ROI. Agency Partner Interactive is a full-service digital marketing and web development agency that has worked with budgets of all sizes. Our meticulous, results-driven process ensures you’re kept in the loop every step to get the biggest bang for your buck. Your business success becomes ours. Schedule your free consultation and start the new year right with an award-winning digital marketing agency! 

digital-marketing-budget

Where To Invest in Digital Marketing if Your Budget Is Limited?

Digital marketing offers businesses of all sizes and industries innovative solutions to achieve their goals. Whether you’re a small business that has leverage a service like ZenBusiness or Incfile to get the wheels turning, there is no doubt that startup costs can be daunting. That’s why one of the key benefits of internet marketing is that it is cost-effective, measurable, and scalable, with constant areas for improvement and optimization. In today’s digital era, a dynamic online presence is essential. But what if your budget is limited? Where should you invest your time and money if you’re just getting started with digital marketing or don’t have a ton of extra cash? In this blog post, we’ll explore five internet marketing services that deliver data-driven results without breaking the bank.

Web Design and Development

Your website is one of the single most important aspects of your business. Most of your potential customers will find you online before ever getting in touch, so your website must be functional, user-friendly, and easily discoverable. Luckily, website design and development services are affordable, and easy to see a return on investment.  

A well-designed website looks professional, aligns with your brand, and allows visitors to find information easily based on intuitive navigation. Additionally, your site should be responsive and adaptable to different screens so anyone can view and interact with your website from any device. Ensure your website includes your contact information and compelling CTAs to turn visitors into qualified leads.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is a vital aspect of digital marketing and serves as the foundation for effective content, email, and PPC marketing strategies. It’s the process of optimizing your website with keywords to rank higher in search engines. SEO is a long-term strategy that requires patience and consistency, but with the help of Agency Partner’s SEO experts, you can consistently drive traffic to your site, rank #1 on Google, and target new markets to grow your brand’s reach. 

One way you can begin investing in SEO is by creating quality content on your site that answers frequently asked questions about products or services like yours. By strategically incorporating keywords into your content, search engines like Google will prioritize your site on its search engine results pages (SERPs) based on relevancy to the search query (keywords) and how helpful your content is for readers.  

This type of content will be helpful for people searching online, so they’ll likely click through when they see it listed as one of Google’s top results for their query (or another search engine). You can also use social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to promote this sort of content—and then link back to it from elsewhere on your site so that all those new visitors have easy access!

Email Marketing

The versatility and reach of email campaigns make them one of the most powerful tools for internet marketing. Through simple automation and personalization, you can engage and market to your list of subscribers while segmenting your customer base to target their specific behaviors. It’s also relatively inexpensive, perfect for companies with limited resources. Email marketing allows you to build trust with your audience, create sequences that call them to act, and build brand loyalty.  

There are many ways to use email marketing, but the most common is sending monthly newsletters. You can also send one-off emails about new products or services, special promotions, etc.

Content Marketing

In the era of digitalization, content is king. The most affordable way to utilize content marketing is to start with your website. An effective content strategy ensures that all of your site’s information is easy to read and conveys your brand message clearly. With the use of SEO, those pages will rank higher on search engines, making them easier to find for anyone looking for your products and services.  

However, it’s not enough to create and post tons of content; your audience needs to engage with your brand. When done correctly, content marketing can drive conversions, increase brand awareness, and establish your industry authority.  

With a limited budget, you might think investing in content creation would be out of reach—but that isn’t necessarily true! With some creativity and hard work (and maybe some help from Agency Partner Interactive), it’s possible to create quality content without breaking the bank.

PPC

PPC (pay-per-click) is a great way to get traffic to your website. You can start by targeting a few specific keywords, meaning you’ll only pay for those particular search terms. It’s also an excellent way to test out a new product or service because it’s easy to stop spending money once you measure your campaign results. PPC is extremely effective at driving leads and conversions, but without the experience of a digital marketing agency, it can lead to unnecessary costs.

If you need help managing your PPC campaign, speak with a digital marketing expert at Agency Partner today! We’ve managed budgets of all sizes, enabling us to lower paid ad costs while maximizing ROI.

Test, test, and test again

If you’re just starting with digital marketing services, the best way to protect your investment is to start small and be patient. A compelling internet marketing strategy requires research, data, and continuous testing. Digital marketing results are measurable, so as you track your campaign’s performance, you’ll have a clear picture of what’s working and what needs improvement. 

You can run tests in the same way that we did: create multiple versions of a single element (e.g., different headlines), then let Google Analytics choose which version it thinks performed best based on the traffic metrics provided by your website analytics tool.

An Award-Winning Digital Marketing Agency

Agency Partner Interactive is a full-service internet marketing agency that provides custom web development and bespoke digital marketing expertise. Our digital marketing experts delve into multiple layers of your business to ensure all our marketing efforts deliver scalable and profitable results. Send your proposal to Dallas’ top digital marketing agency today!