I can still hear my Uncle Anthony’s voice saying, “start investing early and stay the course. It is worthwhile.”
He was right.
Years later, this advice translates into the worthwhile investment I advise my clients and prospective clients to make in proper planning.
If you are planning around a January 1, fiscal year, it’s time to get your team together for a strategy meeting to set the course for 2017. This will ensure budgets are aligned with your strategic plan for the year and your CFO will be thrilled if that budget is submitted on time with measurable objectives tied to it. How might you go about this? Let’s start with some context and by agreeing that marketing is a worthwhile investment.
What drives revenue? Marketing. The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends spending 7 to 8 percent of your gross revenue for marketing and advertising if you’re doing less than $5 million a year in sales and your net profit margin — after all expenses — is in the 10 percent to 12 percent range.
While actual marketing budgets vary industry by industry, the successful organization is spending approximately 10% of their gross revenue on marketing – on growing their business.
What drives revenue? Measurable goals. Overall marketing goals start your planning process. Do you want to build brand awareness? Do you want to increase your customer base by 5% each month? Do you want to better help customers you already have? The answers to these questions will help you determine where you should focus your marketing efforts. In turn, those efforts will then help you determine how much money you need to allocate.
What drives revenue? Better Market Research and Analytics. Once you have your goals set and a better awareness of what activities will need to be accomplished, analyze past results. If you ran a campaign that didn’t work, there is no point in doing it again or no harm in trying something completely new. Often it is the experiments that turn into the biggest successes! It might be time to consider increasing your spending on social marketing or email marketing. Talk to marketing experts. Review the activities your competitors are doing and reveal your competitive edge. Own that unique position in the marketplace and to the audiences you serve.
What drives revenue? A worthwhile investment in planning that will lead you to a solid marketing communications strategy.