As a small business owner, you have a lot to handle (understatement of the century, am I right?) You might be acting as CEO, accountant, client relations, and marketer. Or, if you have a small team helping you, then you’re also acting as team manager. It’s a lot – with a lot of moving parts. At Radiant Marketing, we understand what that’s like! So to help you out, we’ve broken down how to build the perfect digital marketing budget for your small business.

And if you don’t yet have a marketing budget, this post explains why you should.

3 Steps for Building Your Ideal Digital Marketing Budget

There are many things to consider when creating your digital marketing strategy (and allocating budget accordingly), but one of them is whether or not to actually go digital. Many people wonder if digital marketing is better, worse, or the same as traditional marketing and it can be hard to determine which is right for you.

Traditional marketing (such as print advertisements, mailers, radio ads, television ads) is not dead, despite what many people claim. And in some studies, direct mail has been proven to be 21% easier to cognitively digest than digital media. However, it is also much more costly than digital advertising and a lot harder to track (did the direct mailer perform well or not?) And that is the reason we feel digital marketing can be more beneficial for small business; you can track your marketing spending and performance and create a budget you can actually stick to.

So, if you’ve chosen to go digital, here are some tips to consider when creating your new marketing budget:

Discover your Brand Companion.

At Radiant, we refer to your ideal customer or client as your Brand Companion. This is someone who truly aligns with, and believes in, your brand as a whole. If you can find this person, they are easy to win and transform into loyal brand advocates. However, you can’t find them if you don’t know who they are.

For example, if your Brand Companion includes men who are older than 60, you may not want to spend your precious digital marketing dollars on 20-year-old Instagram influencers. If you know your audience, you can stay in your lane – and your money will be better spent.

What’s your endgame?

This is a really important question to ask yourself, prior to spending money in the digital realm. Setting goals throughout all aspects of your business can help you stay on the road to success, but it’s especially important when entering the digital marketing world.

For example, is your goal to get people to your website? Then you need to create digital ads with the right buttons, verbiage, and tone to get them there. If your ideal audience is on Facebook, there are a whole host of ways to narrow down your marketing: you can choose to run Traffic ads and include a Book Now or Call Now button. If your ideal audience responds well to email, and your goal is to sell a certain product, create an email marketing campaign that leads them to the product page. Understanding your Brand Companion and having a clear goal in place will help you to choose the right marketing medium and the right budget to make it happen.

Pro tip: If you have a clear goal in mind, it’s that much easier to track performance. For example, if your goal is 500 visits to your website from Facebook during the month of June, Google Analytics can clearly show you if that happened (or didn’t happen).

Analyze this, analyze that.

We might’ve mentioned a few times the importance of tracking your marketing performance (it’s SO important!). However, tracking it isn’t enough. Part of your digital marketing budget (whether it’s your time or money paid to a professional) should be allocated towards analyzing past performance.

By digging into your digital marketing results, you can decide what worked (and what didn’t). This will help you mold and form your future budget decisions as you decide to ditch the strategy that wasn’t working and put more money towards what is. Don’t let all that great tracking go to waste – use it to transform your marketing into a lean, mean, lead generating machine.

Need more help? Radiant can save the day.

We’ve recently unveiled a brand new website with services that are twofold: DIY and Done For You. Depending on the size of your business and your budget, we offer tools and services for your digital marketing needs. Are you a larger, more established small business who’s looking to grow? Check out our Done For You services and see what we can offer in a monthly retainer.

Are you a scrappy entrepreneur who’s got a very (very) small marketing budget? Check out our DIY resources and join our Get it Glowing Community. You’ll be thriving in no time! At Radiant, digital marketing is our passion – let us help you learn, grow, and find success in whatever way works best for you.

Resources:

https://www.digitaldoughnut.com/articles/2016/july/digital-marketing-vs-traditional-marketing