Jun 6, 2022

The majority of departments within a business have an allocated budget to enable them to carry out their roles effectively. Finance looks after the money, transport looks after deliveries, customer service looks after enquiries, and marketing…. well, they do something entirely different, don’t they?

Ultimately yes, marketing is different to other departments and should be a proactive and strategic function within your business. Not reactionary. Marketing touches every area of a business and every single department impacts the message that marketing will put out to the marketplace about your brand.

How much you budget for your marketing will directly impact your business’ growth and profitability as the purpose of marketing is to be a key driver of sales and profit. Without measured and considered investment, this key driver will fall short.

Effective marketing can be carried out within the budget made available however that depends on the expectation of performance being realistically aligned to the business objectives. If the expected return is £100k, it makes sense that the initial marketing investment would be comparative.

Some marketing activities incur costs, such as media space for advertising, and some marketing activities provide long-term benefits, such as brand assets. So, each marketing spend should be understood individually in terms of the benefit and return to the business.

For example, a brand refresh may be a large investment in year 1, however that investment is going to give long-term returns in the form of brand strength and awareness which drives interest in the products or services being offered by the business.

The marketing spend should be allocated to initiatives that are directly aligned to the overall business plan and sales objectives. This means that all marketing activity should be measured and provide a return on investment.

This can be challenging on certain aspects of marketing activity as a direct value cannot be directly attributed, but that is where the sales and marketing teams should work together to understand what can be achieved with certain marketing activities and assign an estimated return on investment.

When times get tough in business, the marketing budget is often the first to be reviewed. However, when times get tough it is important that customers are aware of your brand, and that’s not going to happen without investment in marketing.