What to Prioritize in Your Marketing Budget
Marketing is a significant cost for businesses of all kinds, but adding to your marketing budget eventually leads to diminishing returns. It’s important to allocate the right portion of resources to marketing while balancing your budget with other business priorities. Cutting marketing costs can lead to a variety of negative effects including reduced sales and lifetime customer value.
That said, marketing spending varies widely between industries, and customer outreach is significantly more important in certain fields. This article will cover typical spending levels in some of the largest fields and explain why certain businesses need to invest more heavily in marketing.
Startups and Small Businesses
Small businesses don’t have the resources of larger organizations, and it can be difficult to make room for strong marketing campaigns. That said, marketing is particularly important for growing companies that don’t have an established brand image.
Furthermore, small business owners often don’t have the relevant experience, and they may not want to spend the money on a contractor or full-time employee. Brand building is one of the most difficult challenges for startups, so it’s critical to optimize your marketing budget.
PR and Marketing
PR and marketing companies need to develop a consistent brand image. Like small businesses, these organizations have to prioritize awareness and let their audience know what makes them unique. Clients aren’t likely to trust a PR business that can’t manage their own public relations.
With that in mind, these companies often focus on social media and other digital channels. These platforms give you an opportunity to engage with customers on a more personal level, and businesses sometimes need to increase marketing spending in order to achieve their goals.
eCommerce Vendors
Marketing is particularly important for eCommerce vendors who make most of their sales online. eCommerce fields are typically highly competitive, and companies need to minimize costs in order to reduce margins and undercut other businesses in their industry.
In fact, eCommerce companies can spend 30 percent or more on marketing. Like PR, eCommerce marketing focuses on social media with another strong emphasis on search engine ads and SEO principles. These platforms are constantly adding new tools to help eCommerce vendors (and other businesses) increase their marketing efficiency.
Almost every business needs to spend some money on marketing, but customer outreach is especially relevant for companies in certain areas. It’s critical to understand trends and practices in your industry so that you can effectively invest in the right forms of marketing.
