Creating a Marketing Budget for 2023 - How to get started

authorToni Becker dateOctober 03, 2020

Your marketing budget refers to the money that is invested in your marketing efforts, and where it will be funneled to allow your marketing team to create meaningful results for the business as a whole. 

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Marketing is the lifeblood of any business as it is designed to gain business leads, and convert those leads into paying clients.  When creating your marketing budget for 2023, you will need to understand how to calculate your budget based on what marketing platforms work for your industry and how to align your budget to suit your goals and drive return on investment.  

Your marketing budget is directly related to increasing your business' bottom line and needs to be implemented with strategy and research. 

Where to begin when planning your marketing budget for 2023

Your marketing team will be dealing with multiple projects throughout the course of 2023 and they will have to be able to prioritise these projects. By putting a strong marketing budget in place, your team will have the clarity and focus they need to manage your budget into specific projects, ensuring the most meaningful impact for your business.

There are three primary points to consider when  putting together your marketing budget:

  1. Make sure the cash flow can be justified, or else your business can spend it elsewhere. 
  2. Make sure your marketing efforts can be measured, and that you will be able to see the growth for your company. Understanding exactly how much you are spending can help paint a clearer picture on how much return on investment you need to generate through these marketing tactics. 
     
  3. Always make sure to justify WHY your budget is being funneled into certain marketing tactics. When your business's finance department looks to your marketing team to determine how much investment you will be getting for the upcoming year, make sure you have a document that outlines all your needs to show where your money is going - and why it is going toward those specific marketing tactics. 

Understand your Operational Costs for Marketing

Make sure to fully understand what your operational costs are in regards to your marketing efforts for 2023.  In order to do this, ask yourself the following questions:

  1. How much will it cost in labor and time to deliver?
  2. Will your internal staff have the time to take this on or will you require additional staff for your marketing efforts?
  3. How much would it cost for an agency to take over your marketing efforts?

Once you have a clearer understanding of what you will be spending your money on, you need to set your marketing budget to suit your goals.

Marketing Budget based on your Business Goals and Objectives

When it comes to determining your business goals and objectives you need to ask yourself:

  1. What is your business objective for each quarter?  Do you need to consider seasonal variations?
  2. What is your business objective for the year?
  3. How many leads would you have to acquire through your efforts and how many of these leads need to be given to your sales team, and how many have to be closed to impact the revenue of your business in order to achieve these objectives?

What is important to note is that no business should base their marketing budget on what is left over for the year after covering other business related expenses. Marketing is an investment, and needs to be split strategically between brand development costs such as social media marketing, websites and blogs as well as paid online campaigns. 

Marketing as an Investment

In some companies, marketing budgets usually descend from the top of the organization as marketing teams are often considered to be costly and marketing budgets are viewed as an expense. With this kind of thinking, organization's look at the previous year's marketing spend and tend to make a decision about where they would want to spend money for the forthcoming year.

Rather than making decisions this way, your marketing budget needs to be viewed as an investment, especially as the vaccines are being rolled out swiftly across the world and we begin to rebuild our brands.  The very definition of an "investment" is something that is quantifiable and ascertains a return on investment over time, this is why digital marketing is the ideal place to focus your marketing efforts as you are able to measure all your marketing efforts and translate them into cold hard cash.

For example, many businesses use Search Engine Optimisation as part of their marketing strategy - but are they able to see direct results from this tactic. Make sure that you work with marketing professionals that are able to measure all your efforts and present the results to you in a way that you understand - take a look at NEXA and our Search Engine Ownership strategy for greater insight into using Marketing in 2023 as an investment rather than a hard spend, here.

There are also a variety of modern tools that can help you measure all your marketing efforts, from lead generation to sales. By investing these tools into your marketing budget for 2023, you are sure to see the best possible results and increase your bottom line. One of the most important tools for this is a Customer Relationship Management platform. This kind of platform allows you to track your marketing efforts in real time, collect lead data, and communicate with your leads effectively - and at the right time. Learn more about Customer Relationship Management and why it is a good marketing investment, here

Take your Growth Stage into Consideration

When you begin setting your marketing budget for 2023, you need to consider whether your business is in planning or growth mode.  Growth mode means that you need to generate top line revenue as quickly as possible, and this means you may have to consider deeper investments for quick marketing techniques such as PPC, AdWords and paid social media campaigns.

Planning mode means that steady growth is welcomed and this means that you need to consider long term marketing strategies as opposed to strategies that offer quick turnaround time. This is where inbound marketing is your best option, from content creation to email marketing and lead nurturing. 

Make sure to understand what you expect from your marketing and plan around what tactics will work best for you and your business objectives. 

In Conclusion

Putting together your marketing budget does not simply involve how much you would like to spend, you need to understand what it is you want to achieve through your marketing efforts and you need to divide your budget to the right marketing tactics in order to achieve those objectives.

Take an in-depth look into what marketing techniques will work for your business and how you are able to measure your results and return on investment. Every business needs to view marketing as a business asset and investment as opposed to simply a hard spend and with today's technology, you are able to measure the success of your campaigns and alter them accordingly.’

Are you ready to scale up your marketing for 2023 and get the best out of your marketing budget. Contact NEXA today and we will guide you on the path to marketing success. Start by completing the form on this page.

 

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