How do you plan your Marketing budget?

If you want to attract more customers and grow your business, firstly you need to understand how your business is performing.

Where do your customers currently come from?

When is your busiest sales period?

&

How much are you currently investing in your Marketing?

You need to know this information. If you are not monitoring, nor measuring Marketing Vs Sales, then do not expect Business Growth. You cannot wing this.

Industries and markets must shift, especially when new generations and trends prompt people to find new ways to do business and customers seek new ways to engage with brands.

It is imperative to know and understand what is driving your business. Every business is different and therefore different budgets must be set depending on what you are trying to achieve.

We believe Marketing is the most important function of every business. Without attracting new customers and keeping your existing ones on a regular basis, you will be out of business.

Whilst we all have our own agendas on what to “push”, it is important to have a strategy that we follow.

When creating a strategy, we look at your answers to the above questions and 9/10 we find that the client is following past Marketing activity just because that's what has always been done and/or the client is underinvesting on their business marketing.

To accomplish your goals, you need to ensure your marketing budget is large enough. Invest more and you'll acquire more customers.

So how do you plan your Marketing budget?

1. Produce a Sales report for the last 12 months, highlighting what product/ service was sold and how much you made.

2. Produce a Marketing report for the last 12 months, highlighting what activity you did and where and how much you spent to achieve this.

3. Analyse Sales & Marketing to identify when your busy periods were and what Marketing you did to generate income.

4. Consider what Marketing was the most effective and what Marketing was not effective.

5. If you have considered non-effective Marketing, ask why this was the case and if you can do it better next time or if this is a channel that you will avoid in future communications.

6. Devise a Strategy of what Marketing your business will carry out in the next 12 months and how much each activity will cost.

7. Predict what Sales you hope to achieve through your Marketing efforts. This could be a target or goal that you have already set the business.

If you would like to discuss this in further detail or if you wish for us to help you provide the data and analysis, then please email hi@gemmediamk.com and we will be delighted help you plan a profitable year ahead.