According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses should allocate 7 to 8 percent of their sales revenue for marketing purposes. This isn’t 7 to 8 percent of your gross yearly revenue, but a percentage of your profit. Depending upon your profit, which varies for each and every business, a typical advertising percentage would be 1 to 5 percent of your total yearly gross revenue.
Are you spending enough money on advertising?
Is your online marketing budget on target? According to the Pew Research Center, 87% of Americans get their information online. That’s over 75 million Americans! In this day and age, you can’t afford not to market your business online.
Let’s look at the numbers.
If your gross revenue per year is $5 million, spending $6,000 a month on a marketing budget would not be unreasonable. The more you advertise, the more money you will make in the long run. This is simply a proven fact.
Many small business owners prefer to spend their advertising dollars on print advertising, yellow page ads, billboards, and television advertising. These business owners are following an old business model, the traditional modes of advertising that worked before the advent of the internet. Now that the vast majority of customers are getting their information online, it is integral to spend the vast majority of your advertising dollars on online marketing.
Online marketing yields a greater return of investment (ROI) than other forms of marketing.
According to Hubspot, inbound marketing practices produce 54% more leads than traditional marketing practices. Online marketing is more successful than traditional marketing methods because marketing on the internet requires an inbound focus rather than an outbound focus. Since the majority of people use Google or other search engines to find information, online marketers focus their advertising dollars on making businesses as visible as they can be on the internet.
Signs of Success
A successful marketing campaign will have marketing objectives with the goal of making it easier for customers to find your business on the web. The best way to increase marketing ROI is to focus on attracting ideal customers with great content that is search engine optimized so customers can find your business on the web.
If you are interested in learning more about your online marketing budget, and other methods for improvement, fill out the form to your right for a fully funded sales & marketing automation assessment and we’ll provide a report of specific strategies to improving your team, training, technology, and tactics.
