Marketing and advertising are essential for every business, but how much should you budget?
For most small businesses, spending 7-8% of your gross revenue on marketing is a good rule of thumb. Of this amount, 55% should be spent on digital marketing channels.
What type of bang will you get for your buck?
According to Topdraw, the average cost to reach 1,000 people with online advertising ranges from $3-10, while the average cost to reach 1,000 people with traditional/offline advertising is $22 and up.
Paid Advertising Options
A shortlist of the most popular types of online paid advertising used by businesses today include:
- Display ads
- Paid search
- Pinterest ads
- Facebook ads
- Twitter ads
- LinkedIn ads
- Remarketing
- Influencers
- Native advertising
- Video ads
- Search engine marketing
Before paying for advertising, you will want to understand your Return on Ad Spending (ROAS). The Online Advertising Guide offers a calculator to help estimate this figure for you.
You will also want to time your ads during periods of high engagement to find the best time to post on different social platforms.
Don’t worry, there are budget friendly digital marketing opportunities available to business owners interested in maintaining their budget and growing their business, such as:
- Getting involved with Facebook
- Regularly reviewing your Google Analytics
- Taking a closer look at your website
- Collecting or nurturing customers
- Considering Google Local Service Ads
This Marketing Tool Kit for Small Businesses also offers low-cost ideas to market your business.
Plan Your Marketing
Marketing has many stages, depending on the maturity of the business. Your marketing budget should change over time to reflect your current stage.
New businesses need to create a customer base and let people know who they are. Existing business need to keep and grow that customer base, not letting customers forget about them. And, mature businesses need to remind customers that they are still there.
To help build and navigate a marketing plan for your business, contact your local Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center.
Advice and market research are available at no cost for ASBTDC clients. We can help you understand the best ways to promote your business and how much to budget in order to attract new customers and keep existing ones.