Social Media Marketing Management in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Doha: How Much Should Your Company Pay? [Updated 2022]

One of the most popular questions that our agency receives from new prospects is: "How much do you charge for Social Media Marketing Management?" Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this, as like with many products or services people acquire, there are a number of different options and customisations available to each client. More importantly, our pricing approach also takes into account the effort required for us to deliver effects for your business. This article will address our methodology for each new business that we take on as a client.

The Price of Social Media Marketing Management in Dubai

Whenever we get asked the question about cost, we always ask a simple question back to each client: "What are your objectives from this exercise?" There is a clear tendency or senior management directive for a lot of companies, where the marketing or communications team have been instructed to make sure the business has a professional social media presence. But astonishingly, this question is often overlooked. Rather than wait for the client to work out a suitable answer, we also try to guide them using our experience of not only social media and digital marketing, but also our knowledge and expertise across a large number of industries and business sectors. Our approach is also based on what we need to do to provide maximum results for you business, NOT how many platforms we will manage for you.

We help this process by often providing a list of possible answers:

Generating awareness for your business
Generating new business leads
Create engaging, expert-driven content to distribute via social media
To engage with existing customers and provide customer service using these channels
No clear objectives at this point and want to explore social media for your brand

If we asked the same question to you, what answer would you choose?

If you chose answers 1 or 5, continue reading here:

Social media for your business: Exploring social media for your business and generating awareness can be classed in the same way.

What goals should you set? Goal setting will probably be more focused on fan and follower numbers as well as engagement. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach and there are many, many agencies and freelance social media service providers that can help you.

How much should you pay for a 3rd party to help you manage your social media presence: Because of the less-tangible business targets associated with this objective, you shouldn't be looking to pay more than AED 10,000 (US$2,500) per month for these services. Allocated within this budget should be advertising costs, which at a minimum should be 20-25% of the total budget.

If you chose answers 2 or 3, continue reading here:

Social media for your business: You are either a B2B business or someone who clearly understands the power of social media and its impact on business when implemented correctly.

What goals should you set? The goals for your business from this activity will be focused on a few key areas:

Increase in qualified traffic to your website from this activity
Number of leads generated from this activity
Number of quality articles created for your business that provides answers to genuine problems that your potential customers have
The effect of SEO that this activity has on the company's website

How much should you pay for a 3rd party to help you manage your social media presence: This really depends on each of the metrics above and the level of work required to fulfil the targets set. That said, you will see return on your investment from this activity, which if you reverse engineer back into meaningful data, will give you an idea of how much you should pay. For example:

Average revenue from a new customer: US$ 15,000
Perpetual value (lifetime value) of the customer over 3 years: US$ 50,000
Number of leads required to close a deal: 5 leads provides 1 new customer
Length of the average sales cycle for your business: 3 months

Using the information above, the following should be true:

Target set: 10 new business leads required per month from social media activity (2 per week)
Number of new customers gained per month: 2
Average value (revenue) per customer for the first year: $15,000
Total Revenue Generated per month: $30,000
Perpetual value of these 2 customers over 3 years: $150,000
Over 12 month, value of new clients brought into the business: $1,800,000

Even if you discount the perpetual value of each new customer, the referrals driven from it and other positive sales information, and use the year 1 revenue figure as $30,000 you should be able to estimate a investment figure that is applicable to your business. If you also consider the increased keyword rankings and additional traffic to your business as a by-product of this activity, the number of actual leads will be higher than the minimum target set.

Also take into account the gross and net profit margins here as this will impact your final investment figure. But if you ask yourself (or your CEO) how much would you pay to generate $1.8 million of business over the next 12 months, you will have a good idea of what you should be looking to pay.

If you chose answer 3, continue reading here:

Social media for your business: For large businesses (mainly B2C), social media can provide cost effective customer service opportunities.

What goals should you set? Using complaint resolution targets based on customer satisfaction and time taken will be useful metrics for your business. Also consider things such as time taken to respond, follow-up interaction and other important customer facing attributes that can shine a positive and bright light on your business within the social media channels you engage in.

How much should you pay for a 3rd party to help you manage your social media presence: For large businesses, you may want to consider a full 24/7 support agreement with your social media agency. For smaller businesses you may only need to provide support during business hours. Either way, this combined with the level of resource (people) you require, will determine the price you pay.

Want to understand more about how social media can help your business generated new business leads? Download our free e-book that shows you the steps involved: