Blog Post

3 Questions to Consider When Planning Your Marketing Budget

Amber Blevins • Mar 08, 2023

As a small business owner, you’re involved in every aspect of your business. This includes, of course, areas you may not be an expert at—like marketing.

You know your business needs a distinct marketing plan in order to achieve any results. And you know that plan needs a clear budget attached. But before you dive into the planning and budgeting exercise, take some time to ensure you’re starting in the right place and headed in the right direction.

Whether you’re planning out your marketing budget for the very first time or you’re updating an existing marketing budget, there are a few questions you should ask before the number crunching begins.

Where Does Your Marketing Stand Now?

Are you doing any sort of formal marketing now? If so, how’s your strategy working out? What's your current ROI?

If you’re not formally marketing your business, are you doing anything at all to get your name in front of potential customers?

Some small business owners find they’ve been informally marketing their businesses all along, whether via social media or casually posting a blog or two. If you’re one of these informal marketers, ask yourself if you see results from your efforts.

Recognizing where your marketing strategy (or lack of) stands at the moment helps you identify the first steps in moving forward, thus you’ll have a better idea of how to allocate funds toward building out your strategy.

What Are Your Growth Goals?

It’s a natural assumption that any business, big or small, wants to grow. But when you're running a small business, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to growth. Can your staff handle twice as many customers, for example? Will your existing business model sustain explosive growth?

On the other hand, what happens if you don’t grow at all? Will you be forced to downsize?

Before you get into the details of your marketing plan, take into consideration your realistic growth goals. If you don’t have a specific goal set, now is the time to do it. Don’t be afraid to set aggressive but realistic growth goals. You can't play it safe if you want to get ahead, as they say.

Remember, your marketing budget will be in direct correlation with your growth goals. Generally, the higher the budget, the loftier the projected growth.

Where is Your Growth Aimed?

In the simplest terms, growth comes in two ways: new customers and existing customers. Identifying which of these two groups you want to grow the most is important when it comes time to get your budget down on paper.

Pulling in new customers and engaging your existing customers each requires a unique marketing approach. And remember, the old rule applies here—attracting new customers is more expensive than maintaining existing customers.

Decide early on where your focus will be so you can approach your budget with a clear strategy in mind.

Budgets Can Be Amended

Some businesses plan out their marketing strategy and budget for an entire year and pay little attention to it until the next year rolls around. For most businesses though, this isn’t feasible. Your small business marketing strategy needs attention and monitoring. And if it’s not working, it may need updating.

Same goes for your marketing budget. If you’re not seeing the results you expected or need to move funds around, head back to the drawing board and ask yourself these three questions again.

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