Here’s the challenge. You just started working on your 2020 marketing budget and you assumed that you would have at least the same amount of money in your marketing budget as last year. Or, with your powers of persuasion, you thought you could convince the management team that you needed a higher amount since you have several new product launches coming up, as well as the need to maintain the promotion of the existing products. But, you just learned that your marketing budget is being cut in half. You are devastated. What do you do?
Get out of your rut
Put a real succinct marketing strategy together and list several marketing objectives. Then look at the tactics and decide which ones will meet those objectives. For example, are you going to a certain trade show because “we’ve always attended” or “the boss expects us to go”, or “it’s in a really cool location next year?” Don’t waste your precious marketing budget on frivolous tactics. Take a hardline on the tactics that need to be accomplished.
Measure each marketing source’s cost per lead
Next, analyze each type of media or marketing channel that you used
Cut some high-cost activities
Look at lower-cost alternatives
Are you already sending out emails to your customers? And have you analyzed if they have worked? After you complete your audit, you may decide that you should communicate with your key customers more often. Even if it is an informal email to let them know about new products, promote a special offer, or to offer some important information about the industry. Whether your email distribution is done in-house or you use an outside service, the cost is generally minimal for email marketing projects. Also, look at auto-responders and other types of lead nurturing emails. If a prospect or customer responds and clicks on a link in your email, what do you do then? Hopefully, you are responding to them with more information about their particular interest.
Test new ideas
Always review the data regularly
That could mean after each campaign, once a year, or quarterly depending upon your type of business. Look at the performance metrics and really analyze the best places to use your precious marketing budget. So, you can deliver strong results even with a decreased marketing budget. You can do more with less. You just need to analyze your performance metrics and make some key decisions of where to cut out the wasteful portion of your budget.
To help you put together a master marketing budget, I’ve created a tool that will help you include all of the types of expenses including the hidden costs that hit your marketing budget. Download the Marketing Budget Template. Just click on the graphic below:
To your marketing success,
Sheila
P.S. Did you enjoy reading the above article? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below! And if you liked this article, please share on social media with your colleagues. Click the share buttons at the top of this blog article.
A great article, Sheila, and very timely! I definitely agree that we have to be tuned in to the ROI of our activities and especially cost per lead. Even though budgets tend to be shrinking, it is possible to to get more if you can prove the likelihood (given your data) that you will be able to bring in more leads and, potentially, more sales. Another great point was about thinking of new ideas. As marketers, we can’t keep doing the same old thing. The world is changing too fast for that. It takes a lot of research, and reading, whether it is journals or blogs (like yours!). Thanks for the budget template.
Thanks for your comments, George. Very timely with the budget cycle now upon us. Glad you liked the budget template. Feel free to modify to fit your specific needs.