Have you spent more than £10,000 on marketing over the last year?

You’d be surprised by how many small and medium sized enterprises regularly spend over £10,000 each year but do not know what they spent it on because they don’t have a clear marketing budget.

The financial year is coming to an end for many businesses, so now is a good time to see how you can get your marketing budget to work much harder.

Ask me for a free Real Marketing Budget Review and increase the return from your marketing budget.

Too often marketing spend is ad hoc and unplanned. If that’s the case, there’s a real risk that you’re wasting valuable funds on the wrong communications channels and marketing techniques.

It may also suggest that your approach to marketing is not sufficiently planned and long term. All businesses should have a marketing strategy, a clear long term, planned approach to their marketing.

I regularly come across businesses that are still spending too much on old fashioned press advertising, at the expense of higher return channels. They do this partly because they feel the need to do some marketing, the advertising is ‘discounted’ and this is an easy route.

These businesses may be able to grow their business more effectively and increase the return from their marketing budget by:

  • honing their selling messages and pitches.
  • working on their brand and what it stands for.
  • packaging up and presenting their products and services better.
  • improving the calls to action on their website.
  • investing in search engine optimisation (SEO).
  • using email marketing or direct marketing.
  • making better use of engaging social media on the right platforms.
  • creating short, low cost videos.
  • writing blogs or press releases for free profile-raising exposure.

There are also businesses out there that are spending far too much on new websites, without having a digital marketing strategy. Although some are even going down very cheap website options then having to start all over again.

I suggest that every website development project should include a clear brief, a draft website map and a planned tendering process with reputable developers.

Do you use marketing metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your marketing?

You should have a few agreed metrics, a KPI dashboard, that you check every quarter or, at least, every 6 months. Although online marketing is easier to measure than offline marketing, it’s relatively easy to set up a series of practical metrics.

If you can only afford to spend a little on marketing, a tight budget is still a budget and spent well can have a huge impact on business growth and revenue.

But this doesn’t mean ‘marketing as cheaply as possible’. Cutting costs with poor quality sales literature, a home-designed website or an over-reliance on social media or old fashioned selling techniques, can damage your business and brand.

Request a Free Website & Marketing Budget Review

If you spent more than £5,000 on your marketing over the last year, please request a Zoom Website & Marketing Budget Review and some analysis of your marketing spending.

I’ll make recommendations on where you could spend your budget to achieve significantly higher returns on your marketing investment (ROI), and help you move to a ‘marketing investment’ mindset.

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