16 Ways for Creating A Marketing Budget (and How to Spend It)

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What's up,guys!

Need help creating your marketing budget? Not sure what to include and how to allocate funds? Here’s insights from over 50 marketers on how it’s done.

9 x2 a: R) J2 d/ o* }/ K& TThere’s no such thing as a perfect marketing budget. The right allocation of resources hinges heavily on your business, your customers, and more.
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0 c7 Y9 j8 w& V( R* q5 R6 JIf you’re just getting started with marketing (or even if you’ve been in the game a while), that can make budget allocation a prickly subject to tackle—how do you even approach it? But when your business depends on solid marketing to grow and thrive, solving the riddle of marketing budget allocation falls to you.
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! ^) Y9 q4 h2 ?" {% m1 rSo do you find the right distribution of tactics and budget for you?


While there’s no right answer, we asked 52 marketers to share their best tips for allocating marketing budget. Here’s what they had to say.
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What’s Included in a Marketing Budget?
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- c  |. l6 h/ d. q& \8 A2 ~$ U4 B5 ^Before we get into the details for effectively creating your marketing budget, it’s important to quickly review the things you should include in yours in order to create an accurate and realistic budget.

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Typically, the following should be included in your marketing budget:
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1.Software/Tools: Think your email service provider (ESP), any automation tools, analytics tools, web conferencing software, etc. You can include web hosting and domain renewals in here, too.
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2.Salaries: The salary of those on your marketing team should be included in your overall budget, too.


1 N# F" k7 [6 {6 _3.Outsourcing: Does your team hire freelancers, temps, or paid interns for specific projects? It’s important to work that into your budget.
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3 @7 ~; A+ S1 [4 J# w& R5 W! I4.Advertising Spend: Whether you’re advertising in search engines, social media, video, podcast, or even print.


5.PR Costs: Using a paid service to distribute your press releases? Include that in your marketing budget.
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6.Events/Trade-show costs: These tend to eat up a lot of marketing resources, so plan accordingly.
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  G: t. B, v6 [# [6 g7.Swag: T-shirts, stickers, hats, etc.
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! y' Q1 Q  P' P% Q: X/ J8.Training: Does your company help employees level-up with relevant training courses? That could fall under your marketing budget, too.
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9.Gear: Cameras, microphones, lighting, and other equipment to help your team create multi-media content.
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4 K+ g  h, p* s& T1 R: ]# V# LHow should you organize and prioritize these channels for your marketing budget? Here’s what we learned in our research.
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. R; u2 g  ~/ B/ C# O( C  K16 Considerations for Creating Your Marketing Budget

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+ N! J/ Y2 `  p: }1. Have an Attribution Model in Place to Measure Performance

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, E1 \- @) ]0 k  N  J“Unless you know which campaigns and efforts are generating actual revenue, you’re resourcing your business blindly,” said Martin Shirvington of Plus Your Business.
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Many of the responses we heard centered around tracking performance and adjusting your allocation accordingly. But long before you spend a dime, you need to have systems and tools in place to measure that performance.

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' e2 z  M4 e9 f# w7 U“Trying to determine where to spend money without knowing how each channel is performing is like playing darts blindfolded,” said Quincy Smith of Ampjar. “Define and set up tracking for your marketing channels, so you know where the best ROI lies—before dumping any money.”

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1 L: w! V# T9 @, W  [“Ensure that you have the right marketing technologies in place to be able to measure and capture data at every point possible in your marketing plan,” advised Kyle Turk of Keynote Search. “There’s no point in allocating budget to marketing activities if you can’t track their performance.”
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" O4 j' W! ?: ?2 ^: g6 n2 sKelley Wrede of  Revenue River pointed out that, until you test and measure marketing campaigns, you really have no idea what will work.

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$ c; I, x9 e; ]) ]+ [/ O“You may not know how things are going to work out the first time you invest in them, but if you collect data and can attribute dollars spent with dollars earned for each channel, the allocation process will become much more intelligent and successful for your organization over time.”

0 j( p6 X7 D: r- h1 K: F/ G- GGazelle Interactive’s Ryan Walker suggested using an analytics tool that employs the same attribution model across all of your marketing channels—so you get the most holistic view of the real value of each.
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% K" v3 L/ |: w& @* H2 ]6 ^  jShervington and team use HubSpot Pro because it connects marketing channels (like AdWords and Facebook Ads) and allows you to attribute “at the most granular level.”


) H& h7 m1 j; R* U% t, H0 a5 v' {8 u1 ]Editor’s note: Want a more visual way to report and analyze how your marketing channels generate leads and turn them into customers? Download this free HubSpot Sources Report dashboard to view sessions, MQLs, SQLs, customers, and more—all broken down by source.
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% ~& [4 C  c# b* S0 c$ H8 IIf you want to know more, please click here ！
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