Start Making Your Marketing Budget for 2021

It's time to get active and reactivate our businesses. Planning your marketing strategy and budget for 2021, considering the current situation we are living in, represents a new beginning full of challenges for many companies, both B2B and B2C.

No matter the size of your business, planning your marketing budget for 2021 is essential, so today we share some tips on how you can define the marketing budget for your company.

What will we spend on?

To start planning your budget, it is necessary to ask: what are your company's individual marketing expenses?

In every business, the marketing investment will be different according to the industry, but in general, there are some points to keep in mind when planning the budget:

Agency

Many companies delegate part of their marketing strategy to agencies or professional service providers like freelancers. If so, the hiring cost should be included in the marketing budget.

Software licenses

Both traditional marketing and digital marketing require certain software to perform different tasks efficiently. For the proper performance of the strategy within your company, you must consider which software these are and integrate them into your budget; whether they are programs for photo or video editing, design, or even text production and automation.

Digital ads

Paid advertising on Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, and other platforms is a key element for the reach of your products or services in the digital world.

Promoting articles from your blog, landing pages, or the pages of your products or services is a way to gain much greater visibility and acquire more leads, so this investment is definitely something that should be considered when drafting your marketing budget.

Prints

Although today much of the marketing strategies are carried out through the digital world, there are still printed materials that cannot be dispensed with, such as catalogs, posters, or cards.

As small as it may seem, the expense on printed materials per year ends up adding up to high amounts, so do not omit this type of expense in your marketing budget.

Corporate events

It seems that certain types of events are out of our reach due to the health situation. However, there are different ways to carry out corporate events safely and responsibly to promote and give greater exposure to our company.

Whether participating in fairs and exhibitions or creating exclusive own events or through webinars or digital events, these represent an expense that should be considered in our budget planning. This type of expense can include anything from renting a space, ambiance, decoration, gifts, or even investment in technology or platforms that allow a digital event to be carried out smoothly.

Estimate the cost

Now that you have a better idea of the possible marketing expenses, it's time to define the estimated value of each expense category. There are different methods to do this, and none is better or worse.

Take references

It is likely that some of the expenses included in your plan have already been made before, so taking the previous expense as a reference is a good starting point.

Of course, the expense will not be exactly the same, but this will serve as a base to calculate how much of your budget to allocate to that category. For example, if you have worked with an agency before, even if you do not hire the same one, you will already have a reference for the cost of working with a digital marketing agency.

Seek quotes

When you have never made a similar expense, for example, to hire a freelance community manager, request quotes to know the market values. Contact different providers, ask for budgets, and make an average or take the highest quote to set the budget.

Remember that everything is an estimate; in the future, some of the expenses we consider may not be carried out, but the important thing is to consider all possible expenses for your company.

Since these expenses are not set in stone, it is important to have a safety margin in your marketing budget. To create it, you should estimate a slightly higher value for each element, a good safety margin considers 15% to 20% of the value.

So far, everything seems simple, as long as there is good flexibility in your company to accommodate expenses. Commonly, this is the case for medium and large companies.

However, small companies may face resource constraints. If so, the best method to define the budget is to start with what is available for the sector and distribute it among the expenses that are planned.

To make a good distribution of the resource, you will need to carry out prior planning that allows you to reduce expenses in essential elements and establish strategic goals to make the most of the limited resource. Likewise, you must have the cost estimation of each element, strive in price negotiation to reduce this amount, and prioritize the expense of greatest impact on the marketing strategy.

Ensure your company's investment by planning your marketing budget and avoid expenses that will not bring returns. To optimize your investment and grow your business, it is important to work with experts in the area. At Brand Industry, we are experts in industrial digital marketing, contact us and learn more about our strategies in e-commerce, paid advertising, content creation, social media, software support, and business intelligence.