How much should a small business spend on digital marketing?

As per the exploits of Goldilocks, life doesn’t always offer us a one-size-fits-all approach—porridge, anyone? A digital marketing budget is no different.

How much should you spend? It’s a common question without a simple answer. A business has a unique set of resources, goals, abilities and preferences, so before deciding how much money to set aside, consider;

1. How much money can you realistically afford to allocate to marketing? Don’t break the bank before you’ve had a chance to fill it up. Work within your means.
2. What skills and experience does your team already have and what do you need assistance with? What can and can’t you do?
3. What’s the standard cost of these services? Ask around, what are similarly sized businesses paying?

Find free marketing tools

First thing’s first, marketing tools are easy to come by and the best part is that most of them have a free option. Canva for graphic design, Capcut for social video editing, Mailchimp for email marketing and Meta to send your content out into the world. For more information on our favourite free marketing tools, read the blog. Depending on what you’re looking for and how many people are in your team, you may need to splash out for a paid version which should be factored in to your overall digital marketing costs.

Once you’ve answered the basics and figured out your software it’s time to get started. What’s next? You don’t go scuba diving without the proper training and you shouldn’t be diving headfirst into marketing without any research.

Test your content

Knowledge is power and testing and experimentation are absolutely vital for cost efficiency—especially when it comes to paid advertising like paid social media and search engine marketing. Most ad platforms have functions to make split and A/B tests super easy—and it’s well worth taking the time to carry them out before beginning you hero campaigns. You can test your copy, creative, your audience and even the time you post with a small budget, to understand which options will bring you the most success.

Listen to the data

Take your time! Beginning a number of platforms at once might be a little bit overwhelming and it could be hard to figure out where the results are coming from without the right tracking. Instead, begin with one platform and listen to the data. What insights are you getting from this platform? Can you take these insights and apply them to another channel? Each channel will need its own round of testing, but if your audience responds to the creative on one channel, it may do the same on another.

There’s a lot of trial and error when it comes to deciding on your digital marketing strategy—too salty is certainly not a good look when it comes to your social media presence. Each business need’s a strategy thats ‘just right’ for their goals to ensure cost efficiency. Contact us today and work with an experienced strategist to help your chances!