At last! You finally have decided to take a leap and invest in construction digital marketing services. As everything has started to make sense, you have realized the expenses of this investment. And then you began to wonder how you can able to afford all of this. To be real, you have no way of knowing unless if you have a marketing budget plan in place.
We have all information you have to know to plan your marketing budget realistically and practically. Keep reading and learn some tips, tricks, and steps in achieving a realistic marketing budget this year.
What is a marketing budget and why do you need to plan it?
First, let’s talk about the marketing budget and why it is essential. A marketing budget usually documents how much your construction business plans to spend on marketing over a particular period – by a quarter, month, or year. When you budget the marketing, consider all costs associated with advertising your business, like marketing tools, paid ads, website maintenance expenses, etc.
But why marketing budget is significant, and why is it essential to your business? Here are the top five reasons why your construction business needs it.
- It helps you in allocating funds in the right places
A marketing budget helps you put your marketing funds practically. When you know how much you spend, you are likewise aware of how much you can put in every marketing strategy. It’s easy for you to determine what strategies work with your actual budget or if a digital marketing agency’s packages fit within your budget.
- It helps you stay on track financially
A realistic budget is what you need to stay on track financially. When you develop a marketing budget, you can track how much you spend on every strategy, whether you are overspending or if you can spend more. If you skip, you are most likely find yourself overspending, causing your company to fail.
- It helps you set goals and benchmarks
Having a well-defined marketing budget helps you set realistic goals and benchmarks that move your construction business ahead. Based on your budget, you can put some realistic expectations for various marketing channels. On top of that, you can also better understand the revenue you need to earn while making your marketing efforts worthwhile.
- It helps you plan long-term
Planning your marketing budget ahead of time can give you more clarity, allowing you to create a longer-term plan for your marketing efforts. This kind of perspective prevents you from reconsidering additional marketing expenses and stopping campaigns due to some funding changes.
- It is an investment in your business’s growth
When thinking about investments, you may see digital marketing as just another expense in your business. It is crucial to note that marketing is not a cost – it is an investment. By thoroughly learning how to develop your marketing budget, you will help your construction business get the most out of your investments.
How to Plan Your Marketing Budget
Now that you finally know why marketing budget is crucial, it is time to look at how to strategically prepare your marketing budget and make it a top priority. Here are seven actionable steps you can apply to set up your marketing budget realistically.
1. Build your sales cycle
When you are creating your marketing budget, you want to build your sales funnel as well. These sales funnels are crucial to your marketing budget because they determine how and where you spend your money.
The sales funnel is the process where your target audience goes through to become a paying client. A common sales cycle usually have four stages:
- Awareness – your audience becomes more aware of the issues and starts looking for immediate solutions.
- Consideration – Your target audience begins looking at the options available to them.
- Decision – when leads reach the decision stage, they begin to narrow their focus on construction firms that provide the best services for their needs.
- Action – Once the leads reach the action stage, they pick your services and become your new client.
Understanding your company’s sales cycle helps you see where you might need a digital marketing strategy to help you in keeping more people from falling out of the funnel.
2. Know your outside costs
If you want to know how to prepare your marketing budget, begin by building your external costs. You have to determine how much everything costs your business to figure out how much you can allocate for your marketing efforts.
Here are some outside costs that you can consider:
- Operational costs
- Cost for running your construction business (water, electricity)
- Costs for employing staff
- And more
You must consider the costs when making your marketing budget plan. Not only does it help you determine what services you can invest in, but it can also help you set a baseline on your ROI.
3. Get an idea of what marketing strategies you want to use
A crucial component when preparing for your marketing budget is selecting the marketing strategies you want to use. You do not need to be one hundred percent sure about the strategies you want to implement, but you must have an idea of what strategies seem to be suitable for your construction business. If you are new to digital marketing, here are some digital marketing strategies commonly applied in construction businesses.
- Content marketing – It enables you to drive more leads by sharing valuable blog content with your target audience. Whether blog posts or content videos, you can share this with your audience and build yourself as an authority in your field.
- SEO – Search Engine Optimization is the process of boosting your construction website’s rankings in search results to help drive more and more relevant organic traffic to your construction website.
- Social media marketing – This type of marketing enables you to constantly connect with your target audience one-on-one and deliver informative content to them.
- And there are more. If you want to better understand what strategies you wish to implement upon creating your marketing budget, discover and explore other digital marketing strategies commonly used today. Lastly, make sure to invest in website development as well– it will be your company’s biggest asset in the digital world.
4. Determine your business goals
Your guide on creating a marketing budget says that you should build your business goals, and it is very accurate. You should know what you want to accomplish to set a budget to achieve those business goals.
In setting your goals, make sure to focus on the following:
- Increasing leads
- Earning more sales
- Increasing brand awareness
- Earning more subscribers
When you set your goals, ensure that they are wise and specific. You do not want to set some goals like “increase sales”. That will not give you your accurate target. So make sure to specify everything.
5. Understand your market
You must know where you fit in in the market to establish your marketing budget plan effectively. When you fully understand how you stack up against your competition, you can better establish your strategies to compete with others.
Do a competitor analysis. This method will help you see how your competition performs online. There are tools made for this strategy and they can help you see where your competition presently succeeds online. In addition, it can also help you figure out what marketing strategies you will need to budget to drive more success in your business.
6. Research strategy prices
Whether you are going to run your campaigns on your own or hire a digital marketing agency, you have to know how much everything costs. Your marketing budget must focus on how every strategy will cost your business.
First, you should understand who you want to handle your marketing campaign:
- In-house – If you decide to stick to your in-house team, the costs usually come from materials and salaries you need to add to and execute to your marketing campaigns.
- Freelancers – These are people who specialize in one specific type of strategy or dabble a couple of them. Hiring freelancers usually make you pay them by the hour or per-project basis.
- Digital marketing agency – if you hire outside help from a digital marketing agency, you will get everything you need, from experts to upgraded marketing tools. If you focus more on running your business, relying on a digital marketing agency is easier. Over time, it helps you reap the many benefits of having a marketing plan and somebody to manage your marketing budget.
Start preparing your Marketing Budget Plan Today!
If you are ready to dive into planning and creating your construction marketing budget and have decided to hire a marketing agency, ConstructionMarketing.io is prepared to help! With 20 years of experience in the construction industry, we know how to prepare and plan a marketing budget that works well for your construction business’s unique needs.
Here at ConstructionMarketing.io, we will help you determine the best marketing strategies that work with your budget and drive more results for your business. We offer a range of digital marketing services, including Local SEO, social media marketing, Keyword research, web design, construction blogging, etc.