Episode 6- Marketing Budget

In this episode of Idea to Done, we chat about how to budget marketing for small businesses and startups.

J: Welcome to another episode of Idea to Done 

J/E: I'm Josh and I'm Erick

E: Today's Idea is: Small businesses marketing ideas. I’ll start because I am talking. I think one of the biggest things small businesses [and startups] need to do when marketing themselves is establish a budget. Josh what are your initial thoughts as a business owner on marketing budget.

J: If you don’t have a budget it is tough as you see it all as an added expense. If you have it already factored in then you’ve planned for it. Think of it as giving your money a name - you guys are my marketing dollars, you guys are my marketing dollars. Many people do this with their personal budgets but not businesses, Erick as a marketer what do you think?

E:  One of the other mistakes I see small businesses make is not establishing a budget. At one of the bigger companies I worked for in the past, 2% of our sales was dedicated to marketing. They built that into the price of their goods. It was a pretty big company, we had a national ad campaign, but we had a budget. Apply that to your business. If you sell $10,000 a month you should probably be focusing your $200 marketing efforts on social media, boosts, and even face to face coffee meetings. I consider relationship building lunches and coffees part of your marketing budget, and essential for small business. There will be a tipping point where you will want to bring in a marketing person to go coffee meetings, and help write and produce podcasts and such. What do you think Josh?

J: I like it, as a business owner if I don’t have a pile of money sitting around and you ask for $500 for advertising, I’m gonna see that as an expense that I have to take from somewhere else. But if we have funds available, then we can be proactive about it and you’re happy because you have the budget to do things.

E: As a marketer too if I know I have a certain pile of money sitting around. It helps with my planning. If I know we have just enough money to buy microphones and start a pod cast. That is the route we’re going to go. In your face billboard. 

J: The way I look at it is that even if you have $100, take that $100 and split it up along many small tests to see what drives engagement. You don’t know what you don’t know, so try things. Otherwise you’ll end up with buyers paralysis, and even worse remorse. I’d take that $100 and spend it on 10 different FB ad buys to different market segments. Or take the $100 and test it against the same audience on FB, LI, and IG. Heck, send out postcards that have a tracking phone number on them, just try something that is measurable. Nothing worse than spending $1000/mo on a billboard and not knowing what it is doing. Now that’s a mistake…

E: It’s important to make marketing mistakes. Don’t be stupid with your money. Marketing is constant trial and error. Making mistakes with marketing is a big enough topic to have an episode about, so I’m going to end our budget episode here. 

J: I’d shift the narrative on it a bit and call that learning, not a mistake :)

E: Thanks for listening, if you know a startup that could use daily advice have them subscribe and leave a review on iTunes.