Marketing 101 - Do no spread budget too thin!

At the same time do not rely on one platform.

When I audit a company's marketing initiatives, I either find they spreading their budget across too many platforms/initiatives or too much focus on one.

Achieving balance is key!

Marketing budgets should be optimally invested in these three key areas:

1. Channels
2. People
3. Technology

Channels:

My methodology involves a concept I call:

"Burn Budget - Burn to Learn"

Begin without any specific expectations regarding results, focusing instead on learning and refining your approach. Continuously optimize your efforts until you achieve the best possible outcome.

Analyze factors such as cost, lead quality, and return on investment (ROI) to inform decisions about whether to continue, increase, or decrease marketing spend on that particular channel.

People:

Marketing is not just about what you do, its about who does it.

Marketing is not just about the tasks executed, its also about who executes it. In many companies, there's often a heavy emphasis on spend budget (Money spent on campaigns), with less attention given to the capabilities and skill sets of the team members involved.

A team lacking the necessary skills isn't just a waste of money; it's also a missed opportunity for revenue generation.

Consider the following list of top and fastest-growing skill sets in B2B marketing. Assess each member of your team to ensure that collectively, they possess all these essential skills.

Technology:

Digital Transformation is at its fastest pace in marketing, changing the marketing operations landscape.

There are many clever tools available for marketing, like ones that help us understand data better and others that make it easy to create content. These tools are made to fit every step of the marketing process, from planning to analyzing how well our efforts are doing.

I conceptualize marketing within four key stages:

1. Plan
2. Create
3. Distribute
4. Analyse

Many tools are capable of managing all four stages of marketing really well. According to a survey by Ascend2, companies have shared the marketing technologies they use. The variety of tools available to handle different aspects of marketing is truly impressive.

MarTech has evolved from simply asking, "Is there a tool for this process?" to the more complex question of "Which option do I choose from the multitude available?" Frankly, the number of tools out there is staggering.

Allocating budget for tools is incredibly important for marketing success. Many tools offer outstanding features at a fraction of the cost.

One of my personal favorites is #zoho, due to its affordability and user-friendly interface.

Important - Journey based budget allocation:

Many companies prioritize spending on lead generation, often generating thousands of leads but struggling with low conversion rates. However, allocating budget for each stage of the customer journey can significantly improve overall marketing campaign performance.

A company that effectively covers every stage of the customer journey not only enhances conversion rates by increasing brand perception.

Marketing isn't solely about generating leads; it's about converting them.

Conclusion:

Big budget does not mean great results.

Effective planning and budget allocation across the discussed areas ensure better marketing outcomes.

Key Take Away:

I find immense value in deriving business insights from Tamil quotes, one of the world's oldest languages.

One such quote, "?????? ?????????? ?????? ???????," roughly translates to "even if you throw it in the river, measure it."

This concept is particularly pertinent to marketing, emphasizing the importance of measuring marketing spend.

As a key takeaway from this article, here are the essential pointers to measure in marketing.

Do you have something to add to marketing budgeting? Feel free to comment!