The marketing budget is the total amount of money allocated to marketing activities. In uncertain times, marketers must align their budgets with business results and effectively communicate value in terms that resonate with executive leadership teams. To do this, ensure that your budget is customer-focused and includes performance dashboards, benchmarks and agile plans to present the business case. The expected sales performance will allow for comparisons between marketing expenses and expected sales.
By aligning marketing activity with business performance, you empower your partners and teams by efficiently attributing managerial level metrics. Determining a marketing budget can be a challenge, especially if you're new to marketing investments. Less than half (47.9 percent) of companies include employee marketing expenses in their marketing budgets. What companies include in their marketing budgets can vary significantly depending on the industry in which they operate and the types of customers they serve.
Since all marketing decisions have financial implications, the marketing plan should include details of how much money is needed to implement the marketing strategy and marketing tactics. A marketing budget specifies the exact amounts that will be allocated to staff salaries, office space, equipment, marketing communications, ad design, and specific marketing channels. While this may vary slightly depending on the industry, the first step in substantiating future marketing budgets is to rethink traditional marketing knowledge to adopt measures at the business level. As customer expectations evolve and marketing strategies change, marketing planning and program overhead must be adapted accordingly.
Based on his experience, Marquet believes that any company should allocate at least 10% of its gross revenues to marketing and advertising, but 12% is better if it can invest this amount. When adjusting your marketing budget and modifying a strategy, do it slowly, adjusting one key variable at a time. Other companies may include the expenses of marketing employees in general and administrative expenses, sales, or other areas. Performance dashboards are often a good first starting point for marketing leaders who care about data and seek to display information in real time and generate transparency in all sectors and business disciplines.
