How do you set a marketing budget? The method that works for small companies
A percentage of sales? Whatever is left after costs? Both are wrong. How to build a budget from a real sales target.
Marketing budget and return
A budget is not a number you state at year end, it is a decision that shapes how you grow. This series covers how to size your marketing budget, know what you are paying for, and hold people to results.
This topic is module 12 of the free digital marketing course, 90 lessons in a deliberate order. Start the course
How do you set a marketing budget? The method that works for small companies
Plan your costs before marketing, before you buy a pound of advertising
Most small-company campaigns fail not because of the ad, but because the costs behind it were never calculated. What has to be worked out first.
Don't cut marketing in half, next month pays the price
The moment things tighten, the first line cut is marketing. Why that looks wise and turns out to be the most expensive decision of the year.
Hold people to results or to method, not both
If you manage a marketing team or an agency, you have to choose: give them freedom and judge the numbers, or set the method and judge the execution.
More profit doesn't always mean more customers
The first idea when you want to earn more is to get more customers. There are five faster and cheaper routes, and all of them are within your control.
Getting marketing budget approved is not a presentation problem. The numbers that move the decision, and how to ask for an amount you can defend.
The budget is the last piece of the growth system, not the first, and it is worked out backwards from the target. That is the closing part of my free book Growth Engine, with a ninety-day plan and a budget in money and hours, written in Arabic: Part 7, The plan and the budget.
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