6 Ways to Plan The Perfect Marketing Budget for Businesses

Have you ever heard of a marketing budget plan? Generally, it is a budget plan that impacts the effectiveness of the marketing strategy. 

In the business sector, budgeting is highly beneficial. With a budget plan, a business can monitor every development made and facilitate the formulation of an effective marketing strategy. 

Therefore, how do you make a good marketing budget plan? This article will cover everything from the concept, such as a marketing budget plan, to how to create it. Here's more explanation! 

What Is a Marketing Budget Plan?

A marketing budget is a budget required for the marketing process. To organize it thoroughly, you must first create a marketing budget plan. 

A marketing budget plan is a strategy for allocating funding to marketing activities and measuring the overall marketing strategy's effectiveness.

The content discusses the budget spent on marketing activities so every stakeholder can observe, evaluate, and respond. 

The marketing budget needs of each company are different because they are influenced by the type of business and the target market.

Some examples of marketing budget plans that are commonly used include promotional activities, events, digital marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), content marketing creation, and many others.

Benefits of Creating a Marketing Budget Plan

Marketing budgeting is generally done in consultation between management and the company's marketing department. 

Thus, the allocation of funds for marketing can be structured accurately using target benchmarks established by management and the business in general. The benefits of creating a marketing budget are as follows: 

• Becoming the guideline in determining an effective marketing strategy. 
• Creating a budget for future marketing plans. 
• Makes it easier for companies to develop business strategies. 
• Avoid overbudgeting because the budget has been well allocated.
• Entrepreneurs can easily monitor every business development. 

With proper and detailed planning, all elements and expenditures during marketing activities can be thoroughly monitored while facilitating evaluation at the end of the period.

Example of Marketing Budget Plan 

As a marketer who is responsible for creating a marketing budget, you must be familiar with the examples of marketing budget allocation. Here are 5 examples of marketing budget plans that you can take as a reference. 

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an attempt to optimize your business website to appear on the main page of search engines like Google.

To achieve this goal, you must implement the right SEO strategy. One of the factors that support its success is implementing SEO tools and collaborating with professional SEO service providers. 

Before that, you must compile a budget plan when implementing SEO strategies, estimating costs, and allocating company funds for the entire SEO needs. 

2. SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

Similar to SEO, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) also aims to increase the visibility of the company's website to appear on the search pages (SERP). 

However, SEO and SEM have significant differences. While SEO organizes more audiences through content, SEM uses paid advertising on Google or social media. 

The most commonly used strategy is PPC (Pay-Per-Click). This strategy makes advertisers charge every time a user clicks on an ad.

3. Partnership and KOL (Key Opinion Leader

The next stage is to consider creating marketing budgets for partnership and KOL needs. In this case, you can collaborate with several potential influencers to market the product and know their rate card and the required budget estimates. 

4. Offline Marketing 

In addition to implementing an online marketing strategy, you can also use an offline marketing strategy. 

Afterward, you need to create a marketing budget that matches the company's needs. Some examples of offline marketing that you can use include banners, pamphlets, or billboard ads. 

5. Inbound Content Marketing

Quality content will increase traffic and be able to reach broader audiences. In the process, costs are required and you can allocate them to the company's marketing budget. 

It can be divided into several categories, such as the cost of creating video content, blog articles, or designing infographics for social media. 
 

How to Plan Your Marketing Budget 

After knowing an example of a marketing budget plan, the next step is to understand how to plan marketing budget. These are the steps for you to run an effective marketing campaign:

1. Set Priorities

Firstly, you need to set marketing priorities. For example, if you want to enhance marketing through social media or a website, then prioritize the budget for both activities. Setting these priorities will help your marketing strategy be more focused and targeted.
 

2. Set Marketing Target

The next stage is to determine the marketing goals that you want to do. For example, do you want to increase brand awareness, gain sales on social media, or introduce your brand to the public? 

These goal-setting steps can help you monitor and measure the goals that you want to achieve. Thus, the estimated cost can run as planned. 

3. Conduct Audience Research

To find the best marketing approach for your target market, you must conduct audience research. 

This will make identifying the audience's behaviors and interests in buying your product or service easier. 
 

4. Choosing a Marketing Platform

Choosing the right platform or channel is also another way to define a marketing budget plan so that it does not exceed the limits.

You should be aware that the charges the company will impose depend on the platform you use. Some examples of platforms you can use such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or X. 

5. Analyze the Budget Percentage 

There are no guidelines for the marketing budget plan percentage. Generally, some segments put aside 2-5% of total revenue for marketing needs. However, some companies allocate around 20-50% of their marketing budgets. 

Before determining the correct percentage, carefully analyze and get a figure matching your business revenue. 

6. Create a Marketing Budget Plan

Once you have determined the budget estimates, the next step is to make a systematically effective marketing budget plan. 

To make the process easier, you can create a marketing budget plan with the help of tools like Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets. 

Marketing Indicators For The Perfect Budget Plan

A good marketing budget plan should have clear indicators. These indicators include financial goals, brand strategies, targets, sales plans, promotions, and evaluations. Here's an explanation of each indicator. 

• Defining financial goals: A clear financial objective determines a good marketing budget plan. The size of the cost allocated must be proportional to the projected sales. 
• Establishing a brand strategy: Promoting a brand can increase brand awareness. This strategy can create a high sense of trust in your brand. 
• Defining a positioning strategy: This strategy determines how strong a company's position is compared to its competitors. You can use it to create a positive image and ensure a product's price aligns with its quality. 
• Create a sales plan: Implementing a marketing budget plan will be easier if it's elaborated in detail, from the way to the method of sale used. 
• Implement marketing campaigns: You need to determine what the company wants to campaign in its sales strategy. 
• Evaluation routine: Every process that is performed must be evaluated. The goal is for this marketing strategy to run more effectively and improve the marketing budget plan. 

A marketing budget plan is a vital element in maximizing sales. With the right strategy, you can reach the desired target market!

One of the strategies you can use is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Implementing an SEO strategy can organically attract more visitors to your website and potentially make conversions.

If you need help from a professional, then it's the right time for you to choose SEO Services by cmlabs.  

Our team of SEO experts from cmlabs will help you increase traffic and your website's visibility in search engines like Google. Contact Our Marketing Team now and optimize your business with SEO!