EOFY: How to Decide on Your Marketing Budget

Regardless of how long you’ve been in business, this question must be answered carefully at the end of the financial year. In these uncertain economic times, it may be justified to pull back on expenses, like marketing, but this can be detrimental to your equine business. In this article, we explain how you can make the most of your marketing budget, despite its size…

Setting Your Budget

There’s a plethora of data available on how much money you should invest in marketing but, ultimately, it comes down the unique attributes of your business. A general rule of thumb for a business of any industry is to spend up to 10% of total revenue on marketing, but this percentage may be unsuitable for you.

Your annual marketing budget should take into account the type of business you run, how long you’ve been in business, your financial projections and, of course, your profit margins. When deciding on your marketing budget, be sure to factor in all the associated costs of marketing, including training staff and outsourcing to professionals.

Allocating Your Budget

No business has endless financial resources, so allocating your marketing budget to the channels that’ll best serve you is fundamental. However, to get it right, you need to first determine where your prospects are spending their time, then decide which channels require a higher spend than others to be most effective.

Today, the channels available to promote your business are almost endless. In the horse industry, in particular, traditional outlets, including print, are still a mainstay for many emerging and established companies; while digital platforms, such as social media and your website, can give you massive reach for minimal dollars.

Measuring Your Success

Even if you don’t consider yourself a seasoned marketer, you should always approach your marketing budget with a testing approach. Every marketing tactic you implement must earn its place in your marketing strategy. If one area of your marketing is bringing in more results than another, it’s the one that deserves more attention.

Following and evaluating the performance of your marketing efforts should become part of your routine. There are many simple ways that you measure your marketing, beyond Facebook Insights and Google Analytics alone. Keep track of your success metrics on a regular basis and use this data to inform your future decisions.

Looking for some outside support? Don’t wait for success, create it — with the experts in equine marketing, Archer Creative. To learn more about how we can help you exceed your growth goals, call us on 1300 077 126 or visit www.archercreative.net.au.