How to Build Your Digital Marketing Budget in 2024
- September 22, 2024
- Blog
Planning a digital marketing campaign is one thing, but planning a digital marketing budget? That’s an entirely different beast altogether.
But don’t worry, we’re here to help you slay the beast with this guide to planning a digital marketing budget. From allocating funds to understand the additional costs that can come into play, we’re here to help you craft a budget that fuels your business growth.
Stay tuned as we cover:
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Digital marketing budget allocation
There are thousands of leads looking for your business online, and if you don’t put enough money into your campaign, you could miss out on valuable leads and revenue. But how much money is enough for your campaign?
When setting up your digital marketing budget, the 70-20-10 rule is extremely helpful for helping you allocate funds effectively so you can run a successful campaign. Here’s how the 70-20-10 rule works:
- Spend 70% of time and money on “now“
- Spend 20% of time and money on “next“
- Spend 10% of time and money on “new“
Spend 70% of time and money on “now”
With the 70-20-10 rule, 70% of your time and digital marketing budget is spent on the “now,” or strategies you know work well for your business.
This is a safe place to allocate your budget because you already know that these strategies, products, and services work for your business.
Spend 20% of time and money on “next”
Next, 20% of your budget should go toward things that are on the horizon, like new strategies.
For instance, you might market a new product, or expand your market share by targeting new audience segments. By putting money toward the “next,” you’re investing in your future so you can reach new leads, earn more conversions, and ultimately help your business grow.
Spend 10% of time and money on “new”
Finally, approximately 10% of your digital marketing budget should go toward the “new.”
These are the unknowns of the digital marketing world, like emerging technology or experimental strategies. Strategically investing some of your budget into new ideas is crucial to giving your business the opportunity to stay ahead of your competition.
And remember — the 70-20-10 rule isn’t set in stone. It’s a good starting point, but you don’t need to follow it precisely. You can always adjust the ratio to fit your business, goals, and capabilities.
How to create a digital marketing budget in 6 steps
Now it’s time to start drafting your digital marketing budget. Follow these steps to guide your budget-planning efforts:
- Calculate your available marketing budget
- Review your business performance
- Set your digital marketing goals
- Choose your digital marketing strategies
- Consider additional expenses
- Finalize your budget
1. Calculate your available marketing budget
First, you’ll want to calculate your available marketing spend so you can get a better idea of how large your digital marketing budget will be. There are a few different ways you can determine your available marketing spend:
- Reserve a percentage of your revenue
- Allocate money based on objectives
- Determine your expected return on investment (ROI)
- Budget based on seasonal fluctuations in business and consumer interest
2. Review your business performance
When planning your digital marketing budget, you’ll want to consider your business performance. Where do you want to improve, and how much are you looking to do so? To get the answers to these questions, look at your business performance to get a better idea of metrics like:
- Sales or inquiries
- Customer engagement
- Reviews
- Revenue generated
- Competitor growth
- And more
Looking at these metrics gives you a better understanding of where your business currently stands so you can set better goals for yourself.
3. Set your digital marketing goals
Once you’ve reviewed your recent business performance and gotten a better idea of your capabilities, set SMART goals and objectives for your campaign. SMART objectives are goals that are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
By thinking about your campaign goals as you plan your digital marketing budget, you can better understand what you want to accomplish with your budget and better allocate funds to ensure you’re giving yourself the resources necessary to achieve those goals.
4. Choose your digital marketing strategies
As you start to set up your digital marketing budget for 2024, you must consider what marketing strategies you’ll use and the channels you’ll market yourself on. Where you do your marketing can impact how much you’ll spend depending on technology needed, time, effort, and more.
Below are some common digital marketing strategies businesses factor into their digital marketing budget:
- Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO is a digital marketing process in which you make optimizations to your site to improve its visibility on search engines, making it easier for your audience to find you. This includes tactics like keyword research, content creation, web design, and more.
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising: PPC advertising is a form of paid advertising where you pay a small fee each time someone clicks on your ad. PPC ads appear at the top of search results in highly visible areas, making them a worthy investment if you’re looking to attract more qualified leads.
- Email marketing: Email marketing is a great way to nurture leads and move them along the sales funnel by regularly sending promotional marketing material to their inboxes. Whether you use your email marketing strategy to encourage more sales, remind them of events, or to conduct customer service, email marketing can be a great tool for converting more leads.
- Content marketing: Content marketing is the process of developing informative, relevant content that educates your audience. It’s a double-edged sword when it comes to digital marketing because it works on its own to help you attract leads while also improving other strategies. For example, your content marketing efforts can improve your SEO by helping you rank for keywords!
- Social media marketing: Is your target audience active on social media? If so, social media marketing is the perfect digital marketing strategy to invest in. Advertising on social media helps you build a community around your brand while increasing its online visibility through posts, ads, user engagement, and more.
5. Consider additional expenses
When planning your digital marketing budget, you’ll also need to consider the additional expenses that come with running a campaign, like marketing technology needed, hiring an in-house marketing team, partnering with an agency, and more.
To get a better idea of the additional costs you could face when planning your budget, ask yourself questions:
- Do I want to do marketing in-house or partner with an agency?
- Will I need additional technology to complete marketing tasks?
- Do I have the time to do marketing myself?
- Can I afford to hire more employees to do marketing in-house?
6. Finalize your budget
Once you’ve reviewed your business performance, set goals, identified what strategies you want to use, and considered additional expenses, you’re ready to start finalizing your budget.
But here’s a pro tip to leave you with: Finalizing your budget doesn’t mean you can’t change it in the future. Your budget should be like your business — fluid and adaptable. As your business goes through changes, so too will your budget.
Remember to regularly evaluate your budget to ensure you’re allocating the right find to fuel your business growth and ensure you’re not hindering it or causing it to stall.
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Build your digital marketing budget today to ensure a better tomorrow for your business
As you prep your digital marketing budget, it’s crucial that you evaluate your business and its needs to better allocate digital marketing spend. Have questions about any of the strategies discussed in this post? Need to know how to get more marketing budget or want to ensure your budget goes to the channels that will drive the most revenue?
Feel free to contact us online today to speak with a strategist!
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