Your Q1 Marketing Budget Guide for 2024

Hello all, welcome to Q1 of 2024!?

It’s me again.

Here to help you cheat the system (legally… probably) and make GAZILLIONS in the process.

I’m sure that’s what many are expecting with this newsletter.

A fool-proof guide to success in 2024.

So, first, I want to clarify what this guide will NOT be…

• A promise of unrealistic results with minimal effort.
• Telling you to put 10% budget here and 20% there like some marketing psychic.
• Teaching you a simplified, useless version of marketing – “10 AI prompts that will TRANSFORM your marketing strategy!”

And what it WILL be…

• A concise overview of the most important marketing factors for 2024.
• Offering a deep dive into maximising growth with targeted marketing approaches.
• Describing what a genuinely holistic, omnichannel marketing strategy looks and smells like.

There's no universal formula for budget allocation.

Your business's unique needs and goals should guide your marketing strategy and how you distribute your budget.?

My goal is just to provide you with some information that will help you make those decisions.?

Sound good?

Let’s dive in.

Leave Outbound in 2023

First things first.

Outdated outbound marketing techniques?

In the bin.

Believe me, I've been there – running sales teams, feeling the weight of inefficiency and discontent from a nonstop cycle of…

• Buying data
• Training, hiring, firing
• Email campaigns that never warm up
• Endless phone bills

The results?

1. The costs are astronomical – Setting up, managing, and maintaining.
2. The returns are disappointing – 75% of salespeople don’t hit their targets.
3. Team morale is often in the trenches – not exactly fun getting constantly rejected is it?

Now, envision a different approach:

• Reallocating funds from outbound sales teams to quality ad campaigns.
• Transitioning from pestering to creating brand awareness.
• Making it about customers reaching out to YOU, not the other way around.

A recent study by Veza Digital has found that inbound marketing has 30X the lead conversion rate of outbound marketing.?

Why?

Because it’s much easier to convert a lead that has already identified you as a helpful and authoritative resource.

Who would have thought?!

With an inbound strategy, you're not interrupting your prospects with unrequested messages.

Instead, you're…

→ Placing products/services in front of them that they're already seeking out

→ Answering questions that they already have.

Of course, however, Inbound marketing is not about opening your net as wide as possible.

It’s about putting out the right type of content/ad (in the right place) to attract the right type of clients.

Choosing the Right Channel to Attract Your Audience

On what platform you choose to invest your budget depends on a myriad of factors.

In this section, I’m going to focus on one in particular:

The concept of demand generation vs. demand capture.

(Worryingly, many marketers and business owners do not understand this…)

Beyond having a vague idea of their target audience and the associated platform (e.g. Gen-Z and TikTok), many businesses aimlessly invest their money on ad campaigns without any concept of the sales cycle…

Demand Generation

This is about creating a need or desire for your product or service in the mind of your potential customers.

It's a long-term strategy that focuses on raising awareness, aiming to reach potential customers at the top of the sales funnel – those who may not yet be aware they need your product or service.

It involves educating your market, nurturing leads through informative and engaging content, and building a relationship with potential customers over time.

(↑ Make sure this dictates the content and approach of your ad!!!)

As a general rule, social media ads are perfect for demand generation.

Meta Ads, TikTok ads, etc. are great at sparking interest in cold audiences – introducing your audience to something new.

They generate demand by grabbing the attention of people who weren't necessarily looking for anything specific.

Demand Capture

On the other hand, demand capture is about targeting those who are already interested in your product or service.

These are prospects further along in their sales journey, who have a clear intent to purchase.

Google Ads, SEO, and remarketing strategies are perfect at this stage of the sales cycle.

Essentially, you're positioning your brand in front of those who are already looking for the solutions you provide.

So, it’s about being both visible and compelling at the very moment a potential customer has decided to make a purchase or is actively researching options.

(When it comes to eCommerce, Amazon Ads are also a fantastic option – I've written a separate newsletter just on this topic.)

Building Your Personal Brand: Nice-to-have → Must-have

One thing that 2023 has also shown me is building your own personal brand is no longer a nice-to-have.

It's a must-have.

Particularly on LinkedIn.

The reason being...

People are sick of being sold to.

They yearn for genuine connections and valuable insights.

In turn, problem solvers are replacing pushy salespeople.

(Take a cue from LinkedIn creators like Jasmin Ali? , Louis Grenier , and Matt Gray .)

So, here’s my advice to get started:

1. Identify your target audience
2. Understand their common pain points
3. Create content that describes solutions to these pain points

That’s how you position yourself as a trusted authority in your field.

Most importantly, an authority that people will turn to when they need your services or products.

(Inbound marketing baby!)

The B2B Secret Sauce: LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn Ads convert 3X better than other major platforms.

[Source: HubSpot ]

This has meant that they are an invaluable marketing tool in the B2B space.

(Our agency runs its own LinkedIn Ads, so we’re a testament to this…)

On a basic level, this is how your LinkedIn Ads strategy should look…

• Cold Audience Building: Start by displaying ads that describe your services/products to a cold (targeted) audience.
• Remarketing with Varied Content: Use different types of ads, like case studies, to remarket to to those who engage.
• Building Trust Before Conversion: Avoid pushing for immediate conversions; instead, focus on building trust and brand familiarity.

Hint: conversions are the natural by-product.

(Don’t Worry, I Haven’t Forgotten…) AI in Marketing

Given that it dominated the digital world in 2023, no 2024 guide would be complete without a section on AI.

That being said, everyone and their dog is talking about AI on LinkedIn, so I’ll keep this brief.

AI offers immense potential in marketing, but it requires a strategic approach.

Use ChatGPT to write (unedited) product descriptions and SEO blogs?

No.

Use it to enhance your writing process and analyse search engine results pages?

Yes.

Rely solely on Google's AI recommendations for ad campaign optimisation?

No.

Combine Performance Max campaigns?with manual adjustments to maximise budget efficiency?

Yes.

(For more info on this by the way, Tom Barlow 's your man.)

Where to Start? Answer: AUDITS

This newsletter has a lot of information.

So, let me leave you with one final piece of advice.

The most important thing for your Q1 is investing in third-party AUDITS.

Pumping money into digital campaigns that are doomed to fail will be a harsh reality for many businesses this year.

Don’t let that be you.

To give you a brief example, we audited an ad account run by “AI experts” last month.

F me – it was bad.

Really bad.

1. 20,000+ keywords (It’s a niche B2B company, not eCommerce!)
2. Mostly on broad match (producing utterly irrelevant terms)
3. Unedited ChatGPT ad copy (boring and uninspiring)
4. Changes being made constantly (over-optimising)

All of which produced unimaginable amounts of wasted spend.

Missed opportunities, however, not only lie in ad and SEO strategies.

But also in your website itself.

Every time that a customer clicks off your website due to a poor user experience (UX), you have potentially lost that customer forever.

88% of consumers are less likely to return to a site with bad UX.?

[source: Econsultancy ]

So, what does that tell us??

The 1% conversion rate that your website currently boasts not only represents countless missed sales, but a constant churn of potential customers.

If you do not address your conversion issues, your pool of potential customers will continue to get smaller and smaller.?

In turn, it will be impossible to cultivate customer loyalty and it will be your business’s long-term health that suffers.

So, don’t just pump 10s of thousands a month into your ad campaigns.

First address where you’re paying to send all that traffic to.?

To Summarise...

Start 2024 with an audit.

Has anything piqued your interest in this newsletter? Comment – don’t be shy!

Alternatively, if you’d rather discuss anything 1-on-1, reach out to me directly on LinkedIn or book a 30-minute consultation !