Fortunately, creating a marketing budget for 2017 doesn't have to be something you dread. With the right approach, it can actually be quite simple to put together a practical and easily justifiable budget that will allow you to achieve your marketing and sales goals next year. Phase 1. Identify your revenue goals The purpose of marketing is to generate profitable revenue for your business. So, before you can start budgeting, you need to know how much revenue your marketing needs to generate. Advertising Continue reading below It seems simple enough. Unfortunately, while everyone knows the goal of marketing is to generate revenue, most marketers and business owners tend to get lost in the sea of other metrics. In fact, according to a recent survey we conducted at Disruptive Advertising, only 41% of companies consider ROI when planning their marketing budgets.
In comparison, 80% of CEOs and around 60% of marketers factor conversion rates into their marketing budget calculations. And, as hair masking service you can probably imagine, all of these improper priorities make it incredibly difficult to budget effectively: Does Your Online Marketing Budget Really Make Sense [INFOGRAPHIC] | Disruptive advertising The good news is that if you remember that the goal of your marketing budget is to create revenue and not clicks, conversions, or any other marketing metrics, creating a marketing budget is pretty straightforward. Advertising Continue reading below So figure out what your marketing revenue goal is, write it down somewhere, and let's move on to phase two. Phase 2. Define your target audience Unfortunately, while 72% of marketers are familiar with the idea of buyer personas, only 30% use them effectively.
That in itself is a problem for marketers, but things get even more complicated when you're trying to create a marketing budget for an audience you don't understand. For example, suppose you market ACME widgets, the world's largest widget maker. You know your average customer has a lifetime value (LTV) of around $24,000 (widgets are a profitable business, after all…). With that in mind, you might look at a marketing channel where each sale costs $50,000 and think, that's a waste of money! I am not putting any budget in this channel next year. On the surface, this seems like a very reasonable move, but let's throw ACME's buyer personas into the mix. In fact, ACME has three very different buyer personas: Using Buyer Personas to Build Your Marketing Budget for 2017 And guess what? Remember that unprofitable marketing channel you were about to shut down? It turns out to be your best source for “Infinity Izzie” sales.