How Much Should My Construction Business Spend on Marketing?

Perhaps, you often wonder how much you should spend on your marketing budget? Setting a budget for your construction marketing efforts is incredibly tough. There is no way around it. Too little, and you would not have leads coming in. Too much, and you are going to get sudden heat from those at the top.

So, where to begin?

Read this blog to know how much your business should spend on marketing. Let’s start first on how to break down your average marketing budget.

Breaking Down the Average Marketing Budget

As Small Business Association suggests, companies must budget between 7 to 8 percent of revenue as long as they make less than five million and have a 10 to 12 percent profit margin. But what if you can make more than 5 million dollars? That is not super helpful, right? If you are trying to determine your company’s marketing budget, read the information below to simplify it.

What Other Construction Companies and B2B companies are doing recently:

The 2021 CMO survey – It is reported that B2B companies are delivering a product that spent, on average, ten percent of the revenue on marketing. Business to Business companies with a service, like construction, spent an average of 15% of their revenue solely for marketing.

The study further breaks these percentages down by industry, proving Construction spending just around 3% of the revenue on marketing, Way lesser than the rest of the industry average.

So, what should your company do? No one wants to give a more precise answer about how much you must spend. So, pay attention at the math you will have to do to make this decision for yourself.

How to Determine Your Construction Marketing Budget?

Look at a few numbers you know to arrive at that marketing budget number you do not know yet?

1. How much does your company make annually?

What is your yearly revenue, on average? This particular number should not be too tough to come by and will only give you a much better idea of where to go. It is true that a lot of companies today set their marketing budget as a percentage rate of annual revenue. And that is not the wrong way to go!

2. How much do you want to make?

If the percentage is giving you a headache, I will encourage you to look at your marketing budget this way:

What is your growth goal for the year?
What is the revenue number that your construction company wants to hit?
How many closed sales do you need to make that particular goal?

When you have answers to the questions above, let’s assume you need to close ten more large scope projects and twenty more small-scope projects this year to reach your construction company’s revenue growth goal ultimately. So now, you need to determine what your average cost per client is and add them up. And there you go – a marketing budget is set!

3. What does your construction company currently spend on marketing?

As stated earlier, your company’s marketing budget is possibly a percentage of your company’s annual revenue. Begin by figuring out what is, and you may already know it. Once you have that percentage by hand, assess how your construction marketing efforts perform.

Your industry is an increasingly competitive market. And if your company has been working with a one to two percent of revenue budget for years, it is most likely not cutting anymore. So, your goals have to do with:

Increasing your brand awareness
Increasing ROI
Drawing in more leads
Improving your company’s website

The above-cited goals are easy to accomplish when you have the best marketing strategies to implement. Make sure to adapt marketing tactics like SEO, blogging, link building, social media, etc. To make this all happen, partner with a reliable digital marketing agency like ConstructionMarketing.io. We cater to your specific online marketing needs, with the goal to increase your leads and ROI!

4. Consider five factors that play into your construction marketing budget

Boosting your company’s budget is not as simple as deciding on a percentage of your overall revenue. Some additional factors can suggest you bump that budget up a much higher or lower it slightly. Here are five key factors we like you to assess when connecting to your clients:

Industry presence: Your marketing budget can fluctuate up or down, depending on your company’s presence in the market. If your reputation is good, your online presence is strong. And you would not need a budget as aggressive as a construction company looking to make it to the top. And as with anything, maintenance is much easier compared to growth.
Profitability: If you calculate your marketing budget based on revenue, you must consider profitability. The more profitable your construction company, the more you can afford to spend on marketing, knowing that all money you spend is coming right back to you in the form of closed-won sales.
Company revenue: If your company makes one million annually, spending on marketing efforts is not out of the question. That seems pretty reasonable. However, if your company makes $10 million annually, spending a million on marketing seems like a lot. That is one of the reasons why calculating your marketing budget as a percentage can be challenging.
Target markets: Each construction market is a little different. So, let’s say your construction company works only on large, enterprise-scale projects, and you say ten of them per year. The way you market to the clients and the cost of those efforts will be different from a company that builds mid-sized apartment buildings.
Lifetime Client Value: Your company’s marketing budget must account for the lifetime value of a client. So, if your clients are sticky and inclined to come back for future projects, you have the room to spend a little more on marketing.

5. Decide on your marketing channels

It is most unlikely that every marketing channel you consider will be best for your marketing efforts. No matter the size of your construction business, there is a range of marketing channels you can tap. But the main question is – are these channels right for your marketing goals and needs?

Here is a rundown of the five most popular marketing channels your business can invest into:

Search Engine Optimization – SEO is the process of making your website rank higher in SERPs. This will make your content more visible and easily accessible to your target audience. It is worth the shot!
· Content Marketing – content marketing is a particular approach centered on constantly developing and developing informational content. This marketing tactic aims to drive more leads, help you to increase sales, etc.
Web Development – Your construction website will be the center of your business’s online presence. The website has a far beyond reach compared to any other form of marketing. Hence, it is worth taking the time and budget to invest in its development and design. This will have a significant impact on your traffic online.
Social Media Marketing – SMM leverages the use of various social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc., to build your construction brand, build relationships, generate sales, and establish relationships.
Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) – When social media amplify this, positive WOM from your happy clients can positively affect other people’s intention to avail your construction services.

The above are just 5 of the channels you can implement to realize your intensive distribution objectives. There are more. Fortunately, you do not need to adopt every marketing channel to become genuinely successful. We suggest you evaluate every channel you are using right now to determine your marketing budget. In the end, you only wanted to keep the channels that are best for your budget.

What If Your Marketing Budget Does Not Deliver Results?

Finding out your marketing budget does not deliver results is one of the things that will make you ask why. Seriously, we suggest you get a new provider. If you have taken the time to perform this work and have already set a marketing budget that seems reasonable, you must at least be seeing some results.

Also, suppose your marketing strategy is dead in the water, even right after increasing your budget. In that case, it is time to look at what marketing tactics your construction company is implementing and why. Perhaps, at this point, calling experts is necessary. You have worked so hard to make that money and set that marketing budget. Now, you have to make sure that money is being allocated in the ways that deliver the greatest long-term results.

ConstructionMarketing.io Can Help You!

Whether you are starting out or not, determining how much you should spend on your marketing budget does not need to feel overwhelming. Get specific about your digital marketing plan and feel more confident about where your money is going.

When you learn how to determine and set up a marketing budget for your construction business, all that knowledge can be used for the years to come. Of course, it is always challenging to run your daily business operations and your marketing campaign simultaneously. This is when the leadership strategy of passing out the work becomes essential.

Here at ConstructionMarketing.io, we provide the expertise of an entire marketing team exclusive to the construction business. Our service offerings include SEO marketing, Social media marketing, Keyword Research, Custom Blog Articles, Google My Business, etc.