Are you a new marketing manager planning your budget for the upcoming year? Perhaps you’re wondering how to allocate your budget to achieve your marketing goals?
Learning to manage your marketing budget can be tricky. At Podymos, we know what goes into making a successful campaign and how much it should cost, so we’ve created this guide to help walk you through the process.
By the end of this article, you should have a clearer idea of how to allocate your marketing budget to maximise your time and money.
Practically planning your budget
Budget planning isn’t simply a case of deciding what you want to do and then trying to find the money to make it work; instead, you may find it better to approach with a ‘budget-first’ mindset.
In this section, we’ll run through some practical steps to consider when planning your budget for the year.
Align your budget to your goals
Ensuring that your budget aligns with your 3-, 6-, and 12-month goals is a great place to start. Why? Because it will ensure that all the tactical marketing activities you include in your budget will have the end goal in mind.
Often, companies look to achieve as many deliverables as possible with their budget, but this isn’t necessarily the best approach, as it can lead to a diluted and less effective strategy.
The best thing to remember is it’s always about where you want to be in 3, 6, or 12 months. If a tactic isn’t going to help you get there, then it really shouldn’t be included in your budget.
Ensure your marketing tactics will actually drive success
Once you’ve aligned your tactics with your objectives for the next 3, 6, or 12 months, it’s important to triple-check that they will really deliver what you want. For instance, if you’re looking for more leads, you may decide to spend a large chunk of your budget on social media campaigns and videos. But will these actually help you achieve your goals?
Sure, they may raise brand awareness, but if your audience isn’t visiting your website and converting once they’re there, they aren’t helping to achieve your lead generation goal.
In this case, it might be better to split your budget and invest half in optimising your website to drive conversions and half on increasing traffic through social media and videos.
This will address any issues on your site that are preventing conversions, ultimately meaning your awareness activities will have a greater impact on lead generation.
Add a buffer to your campaigns to allow for optimisation
How much will a campaign actually cost? Often, it’s more than planned, as any good campaign will need to be modified when its initial performance data is reviewed. As such, it’s a good strategy to slightly overestimate/add a buffer to individual budgets to allow for this optimisation.
A great example of this could be social media. Videos are more costly to create than graphics, but after a while of posting, you may find that videos perform better. Having extra budget means that you can accommodate this and release more of the content your audience is responding to. It really is all about the data.
Keep a safety net fund
The digital world is a fast-paced, ever-changing environment, which means that you should consider setting aside a portion of your budget in case your strategy needs to be adapted to cover a new situation.
Holding back 5-10% of your total marketing budget can really provide you with breathing room so you can react to your changing environment.
Remember to be flexible
Another important thing to remember is that your budget doesn’t have to be set in stone. Things change in both the marketing and medical device worlds, so don’t be afraid to re-evaluate your budget in 6 – 9 months to realign with your goals.
The most important thing is that you meet your objectives, not that you complete everything mapped out in your marketing budget.
Take inspiration from last year’s data
A good indicator of where you’re going is where you have been. Take a deep dive into your marketing data from previous years and see what campaigns are working and why.
Look for gaps in your marketing that could do with more financial support and those that could do with less.
For example, is there a certain marketing activity that is haemorrhaging money for little ROI? Maybe it’s worth looking at the activities that are performing well and investing more money there.
Effectively utilise spare change
As the year draws to an end, you may find yourself wondering what to do with any leftover cash. Buying materials for the next year is a great way to utilise the remaining budget while also preparing for the year ahead.
Certain materials can be a great long-term investment, including:
- Photography
- Graphics
- Visual assets and aids
- PowerPoint deck templates
- Videos
- Animations
These are materials that you can use time and time again, and you may be able to use them across several different future campaigns.
Align your marketing with new clinical data and future product launches
When planning your budget, you should ensure your marketing tactics are aligned with upcoming clinical data publications and new product launches. You most likely already know what these are, but if not, speak with your clinical and product development teams to find out what’s coming up this year.
Budget with confidence
Now that we’ve outlined a few practical things to keep in mind when developing your marketing budget for next year, you are good to go.
Keep in mind that your budget should act as a guide: you cannot exceed it, but you can move around within it to account for changes throughout the year. The most important thing is that you hit your business objectives, not that you stick to your original plan rigidly.